sepulchral-looking alabaster vase that stood on the etagere. Returning
to her old seat, and making a nest for her clasped fingers in the lap
of her dress, she remained in that attitude, her shoulders a little
narrowed and bent forward, until her husband returned.

"I've lit the fire in the bedroom for you to change your clothes by,"
she said, as he entered; then evading the caress which this wifely
attention provoked, by bending still more primly over her book, she
added, "Go at once. You're making everything quite damp here."

He returned in a few moments in his slippers and jacket, but evidently
found the same difficulty in securing a conjugal and confidential
contiguity to his wife. There was no apparent social centre or nucleus
of comfort in the apartment; its fireplace, sealed by an iron ornament
like a monumental tablet over dead ashes, had its functions superseded
by an air-tight drum in the corner, warmed at second-hand from the
dining-room below, and offered no attractive seclusion; the sofa against
the wall was immovable and formally repellent. He was obliged to draw
a chair beside the table, whose every curve seemed to facilitate his
wife's easy withdrawal from side-by-side familiarity.

"Demorest has been urging me very strongly to go to California, but, of
course, I spoke of you," he said, stealing his hand into his wife's lap,
and possessing himself of her fingers.

Mrs. Blandford slowly lifted her fingers enclosed in his clasping hand
and placed them in shameless publicity on the volume before her. This
implied desecration was too much for Blandford; he withdrew his hand.

"Does that man propose to go with you?" asked Mrs. Blandford, coldly.