“Don’t, don’t, I pray of you, let him take the color out of life for you,” Mayburn pleaded, turning from this rebuff, tea-cup in hand, to Eppie; and Eppie, with a rather grim smile, again full of reminiscences for Gavan, declared that neither of them could take anything out of it for her. She kept, after that, the talk in pleasant enough shallows; but Mayburn fancied, more than once, that he heard the grating of his keel on an unpropitious shore. Eppie didn’t want him to-day, that was becoming evident; she wasn’t going to push him off into decorative sailing. And presently, wondering a little if his tact had already been too long at fault, wondering anew about the degree of intimacy between the childhood friends, who had, evidently, secrets in which he did not share, he gracefully departed. Eppie leaned back in her chair, folded her arms, and closed her eyes as though to give herself the relief of a long silence. Her hair softly silhouetted against the green shade and the flickering illumination of the firelight upon her, her passive face showed a stern wistfulness. Things had gone wrong with her. Looking at her, Gavan’s memory went back to the last time they had been together, alone, in firelight, to his impulse and her startlingly acute interpretation of it. Her very aspect now, her closed eyes and folded arms, seemed to show him how completely she disowned, for both of them, even the memory of such an unfitting episode. More keenly than ever he recognized the fineness in her, the generosity, the willingness to outlive trifles, to put them away forever; and the contagion of her somber peace enveloped him. She remarked presently, not opening her eyes: “I should like to make a bon-fire of all the pictures in the world, all the etchings, the carvings, the tapestries, the bric-à-brac in general,--and Basil Mayburn, in sackcloth and ashes, should light it.” “What puritanic savagery, Eppie!” “I prefer the savage puritan to the Basil Mayburn type; at least I do just now.” “What’s the matter?” Gavan asked, after a little pause. “Do I show it so evidently?” she asked, with a faint smile. “Everything is the matter.” “What, in particular, has gone wrong?” Eppie did not reply at first, and he guessed that she chose only to show him a lesser trouble when she said, “I’ve had a great quarrel with Miss Grey, for one thing.” “The positivistic lady?” “Yes; did Maude tell you that? She really is a very first-rate person--and runs this place; but I lost my temper with her--a stupid thing to do, and not suddenly, either, which made it the less excusable.” “Are your theories so different that you came to a clash?”