Madame de Treymes

still more monumental gateway-Durham found himself surrounded by a buzz of feminine tea-sipping oddly out of keeping with the wigged and cuirassed portraits fro

charity bazaar, to come in to tea on a Thursday. Whether, in thus fulfilling Mr. Boykin's prediction, she had been aware of Durham's purpose, and had her own reasons for falling in with it; or whether she

ladies present had the sloping shoulders of a generation of shawl-wearers-her American visitor, l

, were what Madame de Malrive most dreaded, the opposing parties seemed to have a common ground for agreement, and Durham could not but regard his friend's fears as the result of over-taxed sensibilities. All this had seemed evident enough to him as he entered the austere portals of the H?tel de Malrive and passed, between the faded liveries of old family servants, to the presence of the dreaded dowager above. But he had not been ten minutes in that presence before he had arrived at a faint intuition of what poor Fanny meant. It was not in the exquisite mildness of the old Marquise, a little gray-haired bunch of a woman in dowdy mourning, or in the small neat presence of the priestly uncle, the Abbé who had so obviously just stepped down from one of the picture-frames overhead: it was not in the aspect of these chief protagonists, so outwardly unformidable, that Durham read an occult danger to his

ncestress beneath which she had paused a moment in advancing. She was simply one particular facet of the solid, glittering impenetrable body which he had thought to turn in his hands and look through like a crystal; and when she said, in her clear staccato English, "Perhaps you will like to see the other rooms," he felt like crying out in his blindness: "If I could only be sure of seeing anything here!" Was she conscious of his blindness, and was

ed privacies to themselves. The garden was small, but intensely rich and deep-one of those wells of verdure and fragrance which everywhere sweeten the air of Paris by wafts blown ab

increased by the surprise o

iate feeling of relief. He had expected the preliminaries of their interview to be as complicated as the bargai

tness; and they smiled together at th

ith deliberation: "So far, however, the wishing is entirely on my side." His scrupulous conscien

you have been giv

himself his own reasons for hopi

s assented. "But still-you spent a great

it was the readiest-if not the most distin

ce more reiterated, wi

erstanding everything that I have b

ing, as he drew their chairs under a tree: "You permit me, then, to s

o authority to speak. I

would be no harm in divorcing my brother-since

eligion sanctions divo

judging such écarts. But you must not think," she added, "that I defend my b

er it from her way

ws. "How cautious you are! I am so straightf

ss you are so straightforward

ith a low note

's visitors. Why should we go on fencing? The situation is really quite simple. Tell me just

former directness: "Well, then, what I wish to know is, what position your family would take if Madame de Malrive should sue for a divorc

after a pause of reflection she said, not unkindly

an," Durham hastily interposed. "I merely wish to clear u

a great surprise to us at first. Still, in this case-" Madame de Treymes paused-"since she has no religious s

ct of possible opposition might be enough to

n her boy'

less, on her b

is to announce his objection? But, my dear sir, you are givin

de Malrive's friend, could t

ce, the sudden concentrated expression of the ancestral will. "I am Fanny's friend, cert

bly, your brother

fretting with her slender boot-tip

mother will never forgi

e an answer?" Durham

your purchase

r the trust I hav

ving slowly a step or

ng. "But it is so difficult to arrange. If I were to ask you to come

here!" he

any other house where

light of the precious minutes. "Not unless y

et? Ah, that would be di

ousin, an American lady, who lives here," s

led brows. "An Ameri

ou send her cards for al

with a laugh. "We do e

k she has ever go

ht if I dine

ess, I i

with acuteness: "I like that, and I