"Yes, you two would make a very pretty couple, very suitable. Your two heads are forever among the stars. I wonder there is a book of poetry left in the house. It is a marvel you both did not sail away in some carved shell of hollow pearl, almost translucent with the light divine _des tous deux_ within. For ottomans you could have piles of Scott, Moore, Byron, Shelley, and Keats; and for food and drink, you could have stringed instruments, and easel, palette, and brush. How contemptible are womanish tastes in a man!" Again he waited vainly for a reply. The pallid fingers of Althea were pulling in pieces a half-faded flower, upon which her lustrous eyes were unvaryingly fastened. "Good heavens, Althea, how provoking you are!" cried Thornton, rising from his seat and confronting furiously his wife, "cannot you speak to a man; what have you to say, what are you thinking of?" "Thinking of?" she said absently, scattering the petals from her fair palm to the floor, then raising her eyes full to his: "Thinking of the fair little blossom that withered in its bloom. I have done wrong to weep for him such bitter tears; for he was _your_ child, and had he lived he might have cursed some woman's life as you have cursed mine." This was uttered apparently without anger, and in modulated tones. But no words of Althea had ever struck Thornton Rush like these. He was speechless; and when she arose and passed him by to an adjoining room, he stirred not hand nor foot. If she had expected then would fall the arranged blow, she would have been disappointed. But she had not expected it, nor even thought about it. The faded flower had, indeed, brought up her own withered blossom, as she had said. Had her husband's discourse been of Johnny, instead of the senseless tirade against her cousin, had he exhibited kindness, and generous sympathy for herself, she might still have been won back to duty. But now, Thornton's words and sneers, however deserved she might have felt them to be, caused her to contrast the wretchedness of a continued life with him with what it _might be_. Thus far she had been agitated by indecision and scruples, they should henceforth trouble her no more. She was fully resolved, even more than when she had promised Hubert. In her own room, Althea withdrew the blinds and looked out at the sky. It was covered with clouds, save one space of blue.