He had reached his own threshold, and his latch-key faltered in the door. As he stepped into the wide hall, a curious figure in the disarray of his fastidious attire, he caught the odor of roses--they were Maréchal Niels--floating out of the drawing-room. The rooms were warm and bright and sweet, but their cheer seemed to him oppressive, and he sickened at the faint perfume of the roses. His wife came and put the portière aside, standing with one white, lifted arm outlined against its heavy folds. Virginia always wore simple evening dress at home for her husband. She had been heard to say that it was one of the amenities that made domestic life endurable. “How long you have been out!” she said, in just her usual sweet, unhurried voice, ignoring his dishevelled aspect. “I am afraid you are quite chilled through.” He looked at her an instant curiously--this exquisite piece of flesh and blood that was his second self for time and eternity--realizing that he did not understand her, had never understood her, could never hope nor desire to do so again. Then he gathered himself together to make the first speech in the part he had appointed hereafter to play--that rôle of devoted husband, whose cues he knew by heart. As he spoke he was shivering slightly, but surely that was because of the raw outer air. “What a charming pose!” he said. “Did I ever tell you that throughout Homer ‘white-armed’ is used as a synonyme for beautiful?” RIVALS “I didn’t presume to suppose that you could care for me yet,” said Rollinson, humbly. “I am not at all sure that I cannot,” said the girl, meditatively, “but, then, neither am I at all sure that I can.” She looked at him with clear, untroubled eyes as she spoke, eyes in which he read her interest, her detachment, and her exquisite sincerity. She had not grown fluttered or self-conscious over his avowal. She was a modern woman, and she was young. Nothing had yet happened in her life to disturb her conviction that this was a subject upon which one could reason as upon other subjects. She was not emotional, and she suspected that the poets were not unerring guides in matters of the heart. She liked Rollinson very much, and she was willing to listen to his arguments. It seemed to her a little strange that he did not proceed with those arguments at once, when suddenly she perceived that the adoration in his eyes was intended as the chief of them, and this discovery was so disconcerting that she blushed. “I am twenty years older than you,” murmured Rollinson. As this was the fact he most wished to forget, he felt it his duty to remind her of it. “Nineteen only,” she answered, calmly, “and, besides, I do not see what that has to do with it. It is not the years but the man one marries.” “It is very good of you to think so,” he answered, still humbly, “and since there is no one else you care for, perhaps in time--”