Darrow, late that evening, threw himself into an armchair
before his fire and mused.

The room was propitious to meditation. The red-veiled lamp,
the corners of shadow, the splashes of firelight on the
curves of old full-bodied wardrobes and cabinets, gave it an
air of intimacy increased by its faded hangings, its
slightly frayed and threadbare rugs. Everything in it was
harmoniously shabby, with a subtle sought-for shabbiness in
which Darrow fancied he discerned the touch of Fraser Leath.
But Fraser Leath had grown so unimportant a factor in the
scheme of things that these marks of his presence caused the
young man no emotion beyond that of a faint retrospective
amusement.

The afternoon and evening had been perfect.

After a moment of concern over her step-son's departure,
Anna had surrendered herself to her happiness with an
impetuosity that Darrow had never suspected in her. Early
in the afternoon they had gone out in the motor, traversing
miles of sober-tinted landscape in which, here and there, a
scarlet vineyard flamed, clattering through the streets of
stony villages, coming out on low slopes above the river, or
winding through the pale gold of narrow wood-roads with the
blue of clear-cut hills at their end. Over everything lay a
faint sunshine that seemed dissolved in the still air, and
the smell of wet roots and decaying leaves was merged in the