Strange, unnatural conventions were growing up about divorce, Cora reflected. The world expected you to appear as completely indifferent to a man when once your decree was granted as it had assumed you to be uniquely devoted to him as long as the marriage tie held. Here she was, sitting at her ease in her little apartment; she had bitten her toast, poured out her coffee, opened her mail--a dinner invitation, a letter from her architect about the plans for her new house, a bill for her brocade slippers, an announcement of a picture exhibition, and-- As she moved the last envelope from its position on the morning newspaper her eye fell for the first time on the account of Valentine Bing's illness. "It was said at the Unitarian Hospital, where Mr. Bing was taken late last night, that his condition was serious." A sketch--almost obituary--of him followed: "Valentine Bing was born in 1880 at St. Albans, a small town on Lake Erie. He began life as a printer. At twenty-one he became editor of the St. Albans Courier. In 1907 he came to New York." She glanced along rapidly. "Great consolidation of newspaper syndicate features--large fortune--three times married--the last time to Miss Cora Enderby, of the prominent New York family, from whom he was divorced in Paris in October of this year." Nothing was said about the two other wives; that seemed natural enough to Cora. But it did not seem natural that this man, who for two years had made or marred every instant of her life, was ill--dying, perhaps; and that she like any other stranger should read of it casually in her morning paper. She did not often think kindly of Valentine--she tried not to think of him at all--but now her thoughts went back to their first romance. In those days--she was barely twenty--she had been in conflict with her family, who represented all that was conservative in old New York. She had wanted work, a career. She had gone to see Valentine in his office, armed with a letter of introduction. He was a tall red-haired man, long armed and large fisted, with intense blue eyes, clouded like lapis lazuli; he was either ugly or rather beautiful, according as you liked a sleek or rugged masculinity. For an instant she had had an impression--the only time she ever did have it--that he was a silent being. She had told her little story. "And as I really don't know much about writing," she ended, "I thought--" "You thought you'd like to do newspaper work," he interrupted with a sort of shout. He explained to her how newspaper writing was the most difficult of all--the only kind that mattered. What was the object of writing anyhow? To tell something, wasn't it? Well, in newspaper work-- On and on he went, the torrent of his ideas sparkling and leaping like a mountain brook. She was aware that she stimulated him. She learned later that he was grateful for stimulation, particularly from women.