“Did you enjoy it?” she asked politely of his reading. “Extremely,” he replied. “The American Impressions of Tyrone Power, the English actor, through eighteen thirty-three and four. His account of a European packet with its handbells and Saratoga water and breakfast of spitch-cock is inimitable. I'd like to have sat at Cato's then, with a julep or hail-storm, and watched the trotting races.” Elouise Lowrie rose unsteadily, confused with dozing; but almost immediately she gathered herself into a relentless propriety and a formal goodnight. “What has been running through that mysterious mind of yours?” “I had a letter from Dodge,” she told him simply; “and I was thinking a little about the past.” He exhibited the nice unstrained interest of his admirable personality. “Is he still in France?” he queried. “Pleydon should be a strong man; I am sure we are both conscious of a little disappointment in him.” She said: “I'll read you his letter, it's on the table. “'You will see, my dear Linda, that I have not moved from the Rue de Penthièvre, although I have given up the place at Etretat, and I am not going to renew the lease here. Rodin insists, and I coming to agree with him, that I ought to be in America. But the serious attitude here toward art, how impossible that word has been made, is charming. And you will be glad to know that I have had some success in the French good opinion. A marble, Cotton Mather, that I cut from the stone, has been bought for the Luxembourg. “'I can hear you both exclaim at the subject, but it is very representative of me now. I am tired of mythological naiads in a constant state of pursuit. Get Hallet to tell you something about Mather. What a somber flame! I have a part Puritan ancestry, as any Lowrie will inform you. Well, I shall be back in a few months, very serious, and a politician--a sculptor has to be that if he means to land any public monuments in America. “'I hope to see you.'” The letter ended abruptly, with the signature, “Pleydon.” “Are you happy, Linda?” Arnaud Hallet asked unexpectedly after a short silence. So abruptly interrogated she was unable to respond. “What I mean is,” he explained, “do you think you would have been happier married to him? I knew, certainly, that it was the closest possible thing between us.” Now, however, she was able to satisfy him: “I couldn't marry Dodge.” “Is it possible to tell me why?” “He hurt me very much once. I tried to marry him, I tried to forget it, but it was useless. I was dreadfully unhappy, in a great many ways--” “So you sent for me,” he put in as she paused reflectively. “I didn't hurt you, at any rate.” It seemed to her that his tone was shadowed. “You have never hurt me, Arnaud,” she assured him, conscious of the inadequacy of her words. “You were everything I wanted.”