nature, some mellow, motionless day when the leaves have turned, but have

not fallen, and it is drowsily warm; but it wasn't so much of nature that
she, in her harmonious lustre, reminded me, as of some beautiful

silken-shaded lamp, from which color rather than light came with subdued
ampleness.

I saw her eyes settle upon the flowers that I had brought Eliza La Heu.
"How beautiful those are!" she remarked.

"Is there something that you wish?" inquired Miss La Heu, always
miraculously sweet.

"Some of your good things for lunch; a very little, if you will be so
kind."

I had gone back to my table while the "very little" was being selected,
and I felt, in spite of how slightly she counted me, that it would be in-

adequate in me to remain completely dumb.
"Mr. Mayrant is still at the Custom House?" I observed.

"For a few days, yes. Happily we shall soon break that connection." And
she smelt my flowers.

"'We,'" I thought to myself, "is rather tremendous."
It grew more tremendous in the silence as Eliza La Heu brought me my

orders. Miss Rieppe did not seat herself to take the light refreshment
which she found enough for lunch. Her plate and cup were set for her, but

she walked about, now with one, and now with the other, taking her time
over it, and pausing here and there at some article of the Exchange

stock.
Of course, she hadn't come there for any lunch; the Cornerlys had midday

lunch and dined late; these innovated hours were a part of Kings Port's
deep suspicion of the Cornerlys; but what now became interesting was her

evident indifference to our perceiving that lunch was merely a pretext
with her; in fact, I think she wished it to be perceived, and I also

think that those turns which she took about the Exchange--her apparent
inspection of an old mahogany table, her examination of a pewter set--

were a symbol (and meant to be a symbol) of how she had all the time
there was, and the possession of everything she wished including the

situation, and that she enjoyed having this sink in while she was
rearranging whatever she had arranged to say, in consequence of finding

that I should also hear it. And how well she was worth looking at, no
matter whether she stood, or moved, or what she did! Her age lay beyond

the reach of the human eye; if she was twenty-five, she was marvelous in
her mastery of her appearance; if she was thirty-four, she was marvelous

in her mastery of perpetuating it, and by no other means than perfect
dress personal to herself (for she had taken the fashion and welded it

into her own plasticity) and perfect health; for without a trace of the
athletic, her graceful shape teemed with elasticity. There was a touch of

"sport" in the parasol she had laid down; and with all her blended
serenity there was a touch of "sport" in her. Experience could teach her

beauty nothing more; it wore the look of having been made love to by many
married men.

Quite suddenly the true light flashed upon me. I had been slow-sighted
indeed! So that was what she had come here for to-day! Miss Hortense was

going to pay her compliments to Miss La Heu. I believe that my sight
might still have been slow but for that miraculoussweetness upon the

face of Eliza. She was ready for the compliments! Well, I sat expectant--
and disappointment was by no means my lot.

Hortense finished her lunch. "And so this interesting place is where you
work?"

Eliza, thus addressed, assented.
"And you furnish wedding cakes also?"

Eliza was continuously and miraculously sweet. "The Exchange includes
that."

"I shall hope you will be present to taste some of yours on the day it is
mine."

"I shall accept the invitation if my friends send me one."
No blood flowed from Hortense at this, and she continued with the same

smooth deliberation.
"The list is of necessity very small; but I shall see that it includes

you."
"You are not going to postpone it any more, then?"

No blood flowed at this, either. "I doubt if John--if Mr. Mayrant--would
brook further delay, and my father seems stronger, at last. How much do I

owe you for your very good food?"
It is a pity that a larger audience could not have been there to enjoy

this skilful duet, for it held me hanging on every musical word of it.
There, at the far back end of the long room, I sat alone at my table,

pretending to be engaged over a sandwich that was no more in existence--
external, I mean--and a totally empty cup of chocolate. I lifted the cup,

and bowed over the plate, and used the paper Japanese napkin, and
generally went through the various discreet paces of eating, quite

breathless, all the while, to know which of them was coming out ahead.
There was no fairness in their positions; Hortense had Eliza in a cage,

penned in by every fact; but it doesn't do to go too near some birds,
even when they're caged, and, while these two birds had been giving their

sweet manifestations of song, Eliza had driven a peck or two home through
the bars, which, though they did not draw visible blood, as I have said,

probably taught Hortense that a Newport education is not the only
instruction which fits you for drawing-room war to the knife.

Her small reckoning was paid, and she had drawn on one long, tawny glove.
Even this act was a luxury to watch, so full it was of the feminine, of

the stretching, indolent ease that the flesh and the spirit of this
creature invariably seemed to move with. But why didn't she go? This

became my wonder now, while she slowly drew on the second glove. She was
taking more time than it needed.

"Your flowers are for sale, too?"
This, after her silence, struck me as being something planned out after

her original plan. The original plan had finished with that second
assertion of her ownership of John (or, I had better say, of his ownership

in her), that doubt she had expressed as to his being willing to consent
to any further postponement of their marriage. Of course she had expected,

and got herself ready for, some thrust on the postponement subject.
Eliza crossed from behind her counter to where the Exchange flowers stood

on the opposite side of the room and took some of them up.
"But those are inferior," said Hortense. "These." And she touched rightly

the bowl in which my roses stood close beside Eliza's ledger.
Eliza paused for one second. "Those are not for sale."

Hortense paused, too. Then she hung to it. "They are so much the best."
She was holding her purse.

"I think so, too," said Eliza. "But I cannot let any one have them."
Hortense put her purse away. "You know best. Shall you furnish us flowers

as well as cake?"
Eliza's sweetness rose an octave, softer and softer. "Why, they have

flowers there! Didn't you know?"
And to this last and frightful peck through the bars Hortense found no

retaliation. With a bow to Eliza, and a total oblivion of me, she went
out of the Exchange. She had flaunted "her" John in Eliza's face, she

had, as they say, rubbed it in that he was "her" John;--but was it such a
neat, tidy victory, after all? She had given away the last word to Eliza,

presented her with that poisonous speech which when translated meant:--
"Yes, he's 'your' John; and you're climbing up him into houses where

you'd otherwise be arrested for trespass." For it was in one of the
various St. Michael houses that the marriage would be held, owing to the

nomadic state of the Rieppes.
Yes, Hortense had gone altogether too close to the cage at the end, and,

in that repetition of her taunt about "furnishing" supplies for the
wedding, she had at length betrayed something which her skill and the

intricate enamel of her experience had hitherto, and with entire success,
concealed--namely, the latent vulgarity of the woman. She was wearing,

for the sake of Kings Port, her best behavior, her most knowing form,
and, indeed it was a well-done imitation of the real thing; it would last

through most occasions, and it would deceive most people. But here was
the trouble: she was wearing it; while, through the whole encounter,