and bony young lady, but she faded so completely out of the general scheme of his immediate present that all the use he made of her was to stare over her head at the distant apparition that was become, now and forever, his All in All. The distant apparition had not lied when she had told him up in her brother’s room that she too, looked “nice” when dressed for dinner. Only the word “nice” was as watered milk to the champagne of her appearance. She was gowned superbly and her throat and arms were half bared by the folds of silvered lace; her hair fitted into the back of her neck in the smoothest mass of puffs and coils, and the curl on her forehead was more distracting than ever. 

 (Married!) 

 She seemed to be speaking to everyone, and everyone seemed to be crowding around her. He couldn’t go up like everyone else, because the awful and bony young lady was talking hard at him and heightened her charms with a smile that took up two-fifths of her face, and wrinkled all the rest. 

 Her name was Lome—Maude Lome. He knew that she must be a relative without being told, because otherwise she wouldn’t have been invited at all. Anyone could divine that. 

 “Oh, isn’t dear Betty just lovely?” this fearful freak said. “I think she’s just too lovely for anything! She’s my cousin, you know; we’re often mistaken for one another.” 

 “I can well believe it,” said Jack, heavily, not ceasing to stare beyond as he said it. 

 (Married!) 

 “Oh, you’re flattering me! Because she’s ever so much prettier than I am, and I know it.” 

 He didn’t reply. It had suddenly come over him to wonder whether there ever had been an authentic case of heartbreak. Because he had the most terrible ache right in his left side! 

 (Married! Married!) 

 “But, then,” Miss Lome continued, “I’m younger than she is. Her being married makes her seem young, but she’s really twenty-four. I’m only twenty.” 

 He shut his eyes, and then opened them. He wished he hadn’t come here, and then grew shivery to think that he might have happened not to; and all the while that awful twisting and wrenching at his heart was getting worse and worse. 

 (Married! Married! Married!) 

 Burnett came up just then with a man wearing a monocle and presented 

 Prev. P 20/184 next