He looked at Pendleton, indecision showing in his face and sounding in his voice as he replied: "It is a serious matter--I must think over it, Pendleton, I must think over it. I will know what to do to-morrow--and to-morrow is time enough to decide a matter that has been in abeyance for two years." Pendleton nodded. "Very well," he replied. "I said it is a matter for you alone to decide; but if you will be advised _you_ will decide it without taking counsel with anyone. Make up your own mind, Lorraine, and then stick to it." "You're very right, and I'll do it," Lorraine answered; and with a wave of the hand he trotted away. "I wonder," Pendleton mused, as he went slowly down the hill, "what it must mean not to know your own mind any better than Lorraine knows his--to be as changeable and as irresponsible--to keep debating and putting off a decision for two years--and then be no nearer it than you were at first." VII AN OFFER AND AN ANSWER Lorraine took Pendleton's advice. He did not take counsel with anyone--not even with Cameron, with whom he dined at the Club that evening, and afterward played billiards until bedtime. The thought of what he had said to him yesterday, as to his intended course of conduct, may have deterred him, as well as a hesitation to admit the instability of his own mind. Yesterday he was fixed on divorce--to-day he was not so sure. The real reason for his uncertainty was his wife's beauty. Yesterday he had not noticed it--had not time to notice it, being occupied with the instant. But this Sunday affair was quite different. He had been alone with her--and he had seen again the adorably beautiful woman--whom once he had possessed, but possessed no longer; who was colder to him now than a graven image. The trim, slender figure in its close cut walking-skirt; the narrow, high-arched feet that she put down so well; the small head, with its crown of auburn hair; the cold, proud, high-bred face that once had been so tender for him, he now saw in all their loveliness--recollected in all their perfectness. And they weighed heavily in the scale--almost balancing her sin. Nay, there were moments when they did balance it, and a trifle more--until he grew hesitating again and doubtful.... And the hesitancy gradually grew less, and the doubt gradually decreased. Then one afternoon in the latter part of the week, as he was coming from his office, the day's work done, he saw her ahead of him on the opposite side of the Avenue. And he became so absorbed in watching her that he was three blocks beyond his Club before he realized it. Guiltily he turned and retraced his steps; and alone, in a quiet corner of the lounge with a high-ball and his face to the wall, he fought it out with himself. And having fought it out, he did a most unusual thing for him--he acted straightway upon his decision, and did not wait for it to cool and himself to doubt and hesitate and change. He pushed the bell.