had kissed her. She often re-examined her feelings about that; but
only to find that they had dissolved into an indefinite sense of the
inevitable. Not alone had it failed to shock her--she hadn't even
been surprised. Linda thought still further about kissing, with the
discovery that if, while it was happening, she was conscious of the
kiss, it was a failure; successful, it carried her as far as
possible from the actuality.

Pleydon, of course, had not written to her; he had intimated nothing
to the contrary, only asking her to let him know, at the Harvard
Club, if she changed address. That wasn't necessary, and now,
probably, he was back from South America. Where, except by accident,
might she see him? Markue, with his parties, had dropped from
Judith's world, his place taken by a serious older dealer in Dutch
masters with an impressive gallery just off Fifth Avenue.

That she would see him Linda was convinced; this feeling absorbed
any desire; it was no good wanting it or not wanting it;
consequently she was undisturbed. She considered him gravely and in
detail. Had there been any more Susanna Nodas in his stay south? She
had heard somewhere that the women of Argentine were irresistible.
Her life had taught her nothing if not the fact that a number of
women figured in every man's history. It was deplorable but couldn't
be avoided; and whether or not it continued after marriage depended
on the cunning of any wife.

Now, however, Linda felt weary already at the prospect of a married
life that rested on the constant play of her ingenuity. A great many
things that, but a little before, she had willingly accepted, seemed
to her probably not less necessary but distinctly tiresome. Linda