interlocked hands. He looked at her and she gave him back
his look.

"Have you nothing to say to ME?" he asked at length.

A faint smile lifted, in the remembered way, the left corner
of her narrowed lips.

"About my marriage?"

"About your marriage."

She continued to consider him between half-drawn lids. "What
can I say that Mrs. Leath has not already told you?"

"Mrs. Leath has told me nothing whatever but the fact--and
her pleasure in it."

"Well; aren't those the two essential points?"

"The essential points to YOU? I should have thought----"

"Oh, to YOU, I meant," she put in keenly.

He flushed at the retort, but steadied himself and rejoined:
"The essential point to me is, of course, that you should be
doing what's really best for you."

She sat silent, with lowered lashes. At length she
stretched out her arm and took up from the table a little