with the contingent obligations. It was Darrow's instinct,
in difficult moments, to go straight to the bottom of the
difficulty; but he had never before had to take so dark a
dive as this, and for the minute he shivered on the
brink...Well, his first duty, at any rate, was to the girl:
he must let her see that he meant to fulfill it to the last
jot, and then try to find out how to square the fulfillment
with the other problems already in his path...



XVI


In the oak room he found Mrs. Leath, her mother-in-law and
Effie. The group, as he came toward it down the long
drawing-rooms, composed itself prettily about the tea-table.
The lamps and the fire crossed their gleams on silver and
porcelain, on the bright haze of Effie's hair and on the
whiteness of Anna's forehead, as she leaned back in her
chair behind the tea-urn.

She did not move at Darrow's approach, but lifted to him a
deep gaze of peace and confidence. The look seemed to throw
about him the spell of a divine security: he felt the joy of
a convalescent suddenly waking to find the sunlight on his
face.

Madame de Chantelle, across her knitting, discoursed of
their afternoon's excursion, with occasional pauses induced