Madame de Treymes

ance, and took time to ponder them gently before she answered in a voice touched by emotion: "You are very generous-very unselfish; but when you fix a l

y should i

gainst every hour since he was born!-I don't mean, you know," she added, as Durham, with bent head, continued to offer the silent fixity of his attention, "I don't mean the special personal influence-except inasmuch as it represents something wider, more general, something that encloses and circulates through the whole world in which he belongs. That is what I meant when I said you could never understand! There is nothing in your experience-in any American experience-to correspond with that far-reaching family organization, which is itself a part of the larger system, and which encloses a young man of my son's position in a network of accepted prejudices and opinions. Everything is prepared in advance-his political and religious convictions, his judgments of people, his sense of honour, his ideas of women, his whole view of

screet modulations; and Durham felt himself tingling with the transmitted force of her resolve. Whatever shock her words b

it in that way, because if I were in your place I believe I should feel just as you do about it. As long as there was a fighting chance I should want to keep hold of my half, no matter how much the struggle cost me. And one reason why I understand your feeling about your boy is that I have the same feeling about you:

and saw that hers met them thr

his said to me! But I could

tinction. "That doesn't mean t

uch cond

of the case. As far as material circumstances go, I have worked long enough and successfully enough to take my ease and take it where I choose. I mention that because the life I offe

ed gaze to his. "My direct answer then is: if

vely. "But you will be-when

instinctive shrinking back of her whole person

o dislike

like anything that would do away with the past-o

with the patience of a wooer on the

e; I don't know;

ming here with me today-and above all your going with me just

thing seem easy and natural. She took me back into that clea

what mysteries, a

a faint shiver. "I am afra

ou've no one to turn to. I'll clear the

llenge at the great city which had come to typify

ly! But you don't kno

w wh

ifficu

udes yours. You know Americans are great hands at getting over difficulties." He drew hi

d: "The divorce, to begin with

her husband's individual claim, were to be considered; and the use of the plural

f your divorce! I've consulted-of

h, so have I. The divorce would be easy enough t

h can they p

how they will do things is one

justice in a-comparatively-civilized country? You've told me yourself that Monsieur de Malrive is the least likely to give you trouble; and t

mysterious solidarity that you can't understand. One doesn't know how far they may reach, or in h

urham's buoyancy began to flag, but h

ernatural powers; do you think it's to people of

otest. "Oh, they're not wantonly wicke

ant me to leave you alone? Was that

esitation, and lifting her head she turned on him a look in which, but for its und

eemed to vanish; the problems grew as trivial to me as they are to you. And I wanted them to remain so a little longer; I wanted to put off going back to them. But it was of no use-they were waiting for me here. They are over there now in

expressed an actual fact and she felt herself bodily d

tically; and as she paused, wavering a little under the shock of his

action, she might decide to apply for a divorce. Short of a positive assurance on this point, she made it clear that she would never move in the matter; there must be no scandal, no retentissement, nothing which her boy, necessarily brought up in the French tradition of scrupulously preserved appearances, could afterward regard as the fainte

of distrust-"but surely you have told me that your husband's sister-what is her name? Madame de

een on my side. She dislikes her brot

else ask her? Wh

mine. But in a case like this they would be all

s sees the reasonableness of what you ask; suppose, at any rate, she sees the

her real opinion from them. At least I should never know if it was her re

se to soothe her, and the practical instinct t

an't find out what Madame de Treymes

r doorstep to lay her hand in his before she touched the bell, she added wit