bounds of propriety. What he meant, all that he meant, was that beauty
should be the main consideration. Lee applied himself to far different
values; and, before he had finished, lunch was ready.

"I have been thinking half the morning about Claire and Peyton," Fanny
told him; "I do feel that we exaggerated the situation last night; it
all seemed more immediate, bigger, than it will turn out. Heavens, as
you said, they can't do anything, nothing can happen."

He was still inclined to believe that. "There is a tremendous lot of
talk and no result; yes--no one really does a thing. They want to, and
that's all it comes to."

Fanny cast a glance of repressed attention at him across a lower
center-piece. "If you could be whatever you wanted, what and where,
what would you choose?" she asked.

"Here, with you and the children," his voice replied without
hesitation. The youth of her expression was happily stained by a flush.
He meant it, Lee told himself sharply. But about Peyton--

"Of course, he was drunk last night, and he said nothing conclusive; he
was only wretchedly unhappy--wished he had been killed in the war and
all the romantic rest."

"It is too much for me," Fanny decided generally; "but I am glad that I
was young when I was; being alive was quite simple then. I am
comparatively young, Lee, 'way under forty--well, two years--but you
can't realize how things have changed in such a short while. The women
we knew didn't even smoke then. Wasn't it only five or six years ago