Aline, of course, knew everything; news reached her by every pore, as it circulates through an Eastern bazaar. Erect in the handsome dress that Mrs. Clephane had given her for the wedding, she smiled drily but approvingly upon her mistress. It was understood that Mr. Landers was _un bon parti_; and the servants’ hall knew him to be generous. So did Aline, whose gown was fastened by the diamond arrow he had offered her that morning. “There’s a nice fire in Madame’s sitting-room,” she added persuasively. Kate Clephane sat motionless, without looking up. She heard what the maid was saying, and could have repeated her exact words; but they conveyed no meaning. “Madame must come up,” Aline again insisted. The humiliation of being treated like a sick person at length roused Mrs. Clephane, and she got to her feet and followed the maid. On the way upstairs she said to her: “Presently I will tell you what I shall need on the steamer.” Then she turned into the sitting-room, and Aline softly closed the door on her. The fire was burning briskly; Anne’s last bunch of violets stood on the low table near the lounge. Outside the windows the winter light was waning. Kate Clephane, sitting down on the lounge, remembered that the room had worn that same look of soothing intimacy on the day when Anne had first led her into it, little more than a year ago; and she remembered that, then, also, Fred Landers had joined her there, hurriedly summoned to reassure her loneliness. It was curious, in what neatly recurring patterns events often worked themselves out. The door opened and he came in. He still wore his wedding clothes, and the dark morning coat and the pearl in his tie suited him, gave him a certain air of self-confidence and importance. He looked like a man who would smooth one’s way, manage all the tiresome details of life admirably, without fuss or bluster. The small point of consciousness left alive in Kate Clephane registered the fact, and was dimly comforted by it. Steamer chairs, for instance, and the right table in a ventilated corner of the dining-saloon--one wouldn’t have to bother about anything.... “I wish we could have got off tomorrow,” he said, sitting down beside her, and looking at her with a smile. “I would have, you know, if you’d thought it feasible. Why shouldn’t we have been married in Liverpool?” “Or on board! Don’t they provide a registry office on these modern boats?” she jested with pale lips. “But next week--next week I shall carry you off,” he continued with authority. “Yes; next week.” She tried to add a word of sympathy, of affection; the word he was waiting for. But she could only turn her wan smile on him. “My dear, you’re dead-beat; don’t you want me to go?” She shook her head. “No? You’d rather I stayed--you really would?” His face lit up. “You needn’t pretend with me, Kate, you know.” “Needn’t I? Are you sure? All my life I seem never to have done anything but pretend,” she suddenly exclaimed.