He had a curious feeling of impropriety in discussing Desire with her mother. It was a stupid feeling to have just because, long ago, he had given Vashti his boyish affection. Yet instinctively he felt that he might rouse her jealousy if he laid too much stress on his change of homage. Was that why she was evading him? How much did she know of what had happened? He began to skirmish for information. Speaking carelessly, he said, “So she’s not gone on the stage yet?” Vashti betrayed surprise. “She wants to--but, how did you know?” Then, finding her own explanation: “Madame Josephine again, I suppose. Desire talks about her ambitions to every one.” “You don’t want her to be an actress?” “She’ll do what she likes. I shan’t thwart her. I’d much rather---- It’s funny that I should tell you, Teddy. I’d much rather that she should marry some nice boy, and have heaps of children. I’d like her to have all the wholesome things that her mother hasn’t had--the really good things--not the shams. It’s lonely to be forty and to have no one to protect you. Unfortunately we don’t find that out till we’re forty, and we can’t hand on our experience. She’s very young.--Tell me about yourself. How’s that big father with the bushy head?” While they talked of the past a closer sense of comradeship grew up between them. He told her about Madame Josephine and Duke Nineveh, and how the wonderful change in their fortunes had occurred. “And Mrs. Sheerug,” she asked, “does she still wear green plush and yellow feathers?” “She still wears green plush and yellow feathers. But she does a bit of splashing now--drives about in a carriage-and-pair. I don’t think she likes it; she wants to please her Alonzo.--It is good to be able to speak of Eden Row. Why, I don’t feel a bit homesick now.” “Homesick!” She pushed back her chair and rose languidly. Her hand went slowly to her heart. “My home’s hidden here; it’s an imagined place, Teddy. I’ve lived always swinging on a perch. How I envy your being able to feel homesick!--It’s seeing you that’s done it. I want to be young, young, young again to-night.” With the reflected light from the table drifting up across her breast and her eyes brooding on him through the shadows, she looked both gorgeous and tragic. He couldn’t think of anything to say; he had always pictured her as wandering from happiness to happiness. While he struggled with his silence, a sob escaped her; she hurried from him. He followed her into the other room, where the shaded lamp shone softly on the lilies. Ever since he had entered the apartment, he had had the sense of a thinness of atmosphere, a temporary quality, a consciousness of something lacking. He knew what it was that he had missed now; these rooms were tenanted only by women. She was beside the window, with one knee upon the couch, staring out to where night yawned above the river and lights twinkled, like stars in an inverted firmament.