He looked about him as the cuckoo called. The room was dear, so dear, from the days when Betty, a funny, bald baby, had kicked and gurgled in that queer oak cradle beside the bed. They had made the child participate in their eccentricities from the very start. She never had a perambulator, her dolly was a grotesque, home-made one, her clothes were made from mediæval designs. Dear! with so many common, precious details. How many mornings had _she_ sat before that shield-shaped glass, and wound the silk of her long, pale hair about her head! That little drawer on the left was sacred to her ribbons--an end of rose was hanging out. And then he looked at her, going close to the bed and stooping as if to caress her. But the dead face tantalized him. The eternal, remorseful tenderness was strong on her lips of steel. There had always been a sprig of rue in her love. Why? that maddening why--never to be answered. There had been a locked chamber in her heart. He turned away, not even kissing her brow. This still, white woman on the bed was not his. He and this soulless face were strangers. He felt her more in the never-ceasing call of the bird, in tall heads of lilies in the garden, and ephemeral patches of Shirley poppies which she had sown in March, in Betty’s ringing shout as she darted like a hummingbird across the grass. The room became suddenly hateful; every corner, every picture on the wall was a pang. Her gown--the delicate gown she had given her life for--hung fresh on the nail. It seemed mutely to hold her shape: in the sleeves, the folds across the bosom, the short, round waist. The sight of it was more than he could bear. She had been so clever, so daring, so different. Clever, not in a positive, productive way,--stupid women could produce,--but she had thrown her capacity about with royal lavishness; putting it into everything she did, if it were only a pudding, or a new border in the garden. He had sweepingly deemed nearly every other woman a fool. Yet she had simply died for her finery. You couldn’t have a meaner, a more frivolous end. She was only Eve, like all the rest, treasuring her apron of fig leaves. He blamed the inanimate thing of lace and soft wool for everything. He dragged it off the nail and trampled on it. He went into the garden, at the piteous request of Betty, and played ball. She had on a pink frock, the color of the ragged robins that bloomed in the wood. He would on no account tolerate mourning, but the pitying country woman who was their servant had tied a black ribbon on the child’s flaxen head. Adeline had made that frock. Adeline had ferreted out the stuff at the village shop and carried it home in triumph, knowing he would be pleased. Adeline! Adeline! He seemed to see her fleet white fingers moving along the seams.