“I wonder, Paret,” she remarked, “if you remember two men who went from here to California about ten years ago? Well, one of them is back with his pockets full of gold and a silk hat. He was engaged to Olive Stanes... I suppose their wedding will happen at any time. You see, he was faithful like yourself, Paret.” The man's back was toward her; he was examining, as he had on every visit Honora could recall, the curious objects in a lacquered cabinet brought from over-seas by Ithiel Canderay, and it was a noticeably long time before he turned. Mrs. Cozzens, the shetland converted into a ball, rose and announced her intention of retiring; a thin, erect figure in black moiré with a long countenance and agate brown eyes, seed pearls, gold band bracelets, and a Venise point cap. When she had gone the silence in the room became oppressive. Honora was thinking of her life in connection with Paret Fifield, wondering if she could ever bring herself to marry him. She would have to decide soon: it seemed incredible that he was nearing fifty. Why, it must have been fifteen years ago when he first---- “Honora,” he pronounced, leaning forward in his chair, “I came prepared to tell you a particular thing, but I find it much more difficult than I had anticipated.” “I know,” she replied, and her voice, the fact she pronounced, seemed to come from a consciousness other than hers; “you are going to get married.” “Exactly,” he said with a deep, relieved sigh. She had on a dinner dress looped with a silk ball fringe, and her fingers automatically played with the hanging ornaments as she studied him with a composed face. “How old is she, Paret?” Honora asked presently. He cleared his throat in an embarrassed manner. “Not quite nineteen, I believe.” She nodded, and her expression grew imperceptibly colder. A slight but actual irritation at him, a palpable anger, shocked her, which she was careful to screen from her manner and voice. “You will be very happy, certainly. A young wife would suit you perfectly. You have kept splendidly young, Paret.” “She is really a superb creature, Honora,” he proceeded gratefully. “I must bring her to you. But I am going to miss this.” He indicated the grave chamber in which they sat, the white marble mantel and high mirror, the heavy mahogany settled back in half shadow, the dark velvet draperies of the large windows sweeping from alabaster cornices. “Sometimes I feel like burning it to the ground,” she asserted, rising. “I would if I could burn all that it signifies, yes, and a great deal of myself, too.” She raised her arms in a vivid, passionate gesture. “Leave it all behind and sail up to Java Head and through the Sunda Strait, into life.”