to be getting old and uninteresting. He saw her wrinkles,
perhaps. She was fading, while he was still preening himself in
his elegance and youth. He was still an interested factor in the
merry-makings of the world, while she--but she did not pursue the
thought. She only found the whole situation bitter, and hated
him for it thoroughly.

Nothing came of this incident at the time, for the truth is it
did not seem conclusive enough to warrant any discussion. Only
the atmosphere of distrust and ill-feeling was strengthened,
precipitating every now and then little sprinklings of irritable
conversation, enlivened by flashes of wrath. The matter of the
Waukesha outing was merely a continuation of other things of the
same nature.

The day after Carrie's appearance on the Avery stage, Mrs.
Hurstwood visited the races with Jessica and a youth of her
acquaintance, Mr. Bart Taylor, the son of the owner of a local
house-furnishing establishment. They had driven out early, and,
as it chanced, encountered several friends of Hurstwood, all
Elks, and two of whom had attended the performance the evening
before. A thousand chances the subject of the performance had
never been brought up had Jessica not been so engaged by the
attentions of her young companion, who usurped as much time as
possible. This left Mrs. Hurstwood in the mood to extend the
perfunctory greetings of some who knew her into short
conversations, and the short conversations of friends into long
ones. It was from one who meant but to greet her perfunctorily
that this interesting intelligence came.