even then, he was surer than ever of that to-night, with his memory of the
pale face smiling down at him and at Imogen from the deck of the great
steamer. The painter had seen the mask only; even then there had been more
to see. And sure, as he had never been before, of all that there must have
been besides to see, he wondered with a new wonder how she had come to
marry Mr. Upton.

He glanced back at him. Handsome? Yes. Distinguished? Yes; there was no
trace of the shoddy in his spiritual histrionics. He had been fired by
love, no doubt, far beyond his own chill complacency. Such a butterfly
girl, falling with, perhaps, bruised wings from the high, hard glare of
worldly ambitions, more of others for her than her own for herself--of that
he felt, also quite newly sure to-night--such a girl had thought Mr. Upton,
no doubt, a very noble creature and herself happy and fortunate. And she
had been very young.

He was still looking up at Miss Cray when Imogen came in. He felt sure,
from his first glance at her, that nothing had happened, during the
interval of his abstention, to deepen her distress. In her falling and
folding black she was serene and the look of untroubled force he knew so
well was in her eyes. She had taken the measure of the grown-up butterfly
and found it easy of management. He felt with relief that the mother could
have threatened none of the things they held dear. And, indeed, in his
imagination, her spirit seemed to flutter over them in the solid, solemn
room, reassuring through its very lightness and purposelessness.

"I am so glad to see you," Imogen said, after she had shaken his hand and
they had seated themselves on the sofa that stretched along the wall under
the Correggio. "I have been sorry about the other day."