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hope it, poor old thing! She thinks maybe, if I leave himā ā€”ā€

But Henry came in with the news of his fatherā€™s munificence, and interrupted this thought that had been in her mind ever since the night of Marthaā€™s return from the long absence in Italy. Throughout all the long time since then, there had always been in Lenaā€™s mind a conviction, however obscured or half-forgotten, that some day she would leave her husband.

XXVI

She was mistaken about Martha, who never had the definite hope Lenaā€™s imagination attributed to her. Martha was steadfast because she could not help it, having been born with this endowment evidently; and her tenderness for the boy she had loved so heartily was imperishable; but the Dan Oliphant of the middle years did not seem to her to be that boy. What she felt for the big middle-aged man, she felt only because he had long ago been the beloved youth; she was not in love with him, nor with anybody. This was the explanation she still found it necessary to make to his brother about once a yearā ā€”usually on New Yearā€™s Day; for it was Harlanā€™s habit to select that hopeful anniversary as a good time to dwell a little upon his patience.

ā€œYou call it your patience, but it became only your habit long ago,ā€ she told him. ā€œIt would really unsettle you badly if I ever said Iā€™d marry you, Harlan; and it would unsettle you even more if I not only said I would, but went ahead and did it. Youā€™d find youā€™d never forgive me for upsetting your routine. If we were married, where in the world would you ever go? You havenā€™t been anywhere for so long, except to see me, that youā€™d be left without the destination youā€™ve been accustomed to. Itā€™s gallant of you to still mention your willingness, every now and then, and I own up that I rather expect it and should miss it if you didnā€™t; but if you want to marry, you ought to look about forā ā€”well, say a pretty widow of twenty-nine, Harlan. Sheā€™d be better for you than one of the ā€˜buds,ā€™ though you could have whichever you chose;ā ā€”theyā€™d jump at the chance! The trouble with me is that Iā€™m too oldā ā€”and Iā€™m horribly afraid I look my age.ā€

The fear was warranted, though it need not have been a fear. She had escaped the portliness that seemed to threaten her at thirty, and had escaped too far, perhaps; but her thinness was not angular; and if she looked her age, then that age was no more than a pleasantly responsible age, as Harlan told her, and neither a careworn nor a gray-haired age. In fact, it must be the perfect age, he saidā ā€”and he wondered if it mightnā€™t be as kind as it looked, and be the perfect age for him.

At that, she became more serious. ā€œIā€™m surprised at myself every year I grow older,ā€ she said. ā€œIā€™m so much more romantic than I was at twenty, and it seems I keep growing more so. At twenty how Iā€™d have laughed if Iā€™d heard of a woman of forty who said she couldnā€™t marry because she was in love with no one! I suppose what would have struck me as funniest would have been the idea of a woman of forty talking about marrying at all.ā€

She was ā€œin love with no one,ā€ but she could still be Harlanā€™s brotherā€™s champion, if need arose; and after George McMillan took up his residence in the town, and began his mild rivalry, she had this amiable bachelor to second her. Moreover, it is to be admitted for her that she, who in the bloom of youth had never known how to display the faintest symptoms of coquetry, now sometimes enjoyed tokens of disturbance unwillingly exhibited by Harlan when the rival appeared to win an advantage. McMillan, dark and growing a little bald, counterbalanced what was lacking above by a decoration below already rare in the land, but not yet a curiosity, a Van Dyke beard, well suited to his face. In manner, too, he was equal to the flavour of a fine old portrait, and he had spoken from his childhood in the accent Harlan had carefully acquired. Thus the latter was sometimes but too well encountered on his own ground.

He met one of these defeats in an early April twilight when he had expected to find Martha alone, as he knew a meeting of the board of directors of the Ornaby Four had been called for that evening, and George McMillan was a member of the board. The air was warm with one of the misplacements of this season, when sometimes a midsummer day wanders from its proper moorings and irrationally ascends almost to the chilly headwaters of spring. Martha was upon the veranda, occupied with a fan and the conversation of Mr. McMillan when Harlan arrived; and the newcomer was so maladroit as to make his disappointed expectations plain.

ā€œI thought you had a directorsā€™ meeting,ā€ he said, almost with his greeting and before he had seated himself in one of the wicker chairs brought out upon the veranda by the unseasonable warmth. ā€œI thought there wasā ā€”ā€

George assented placidly. ā€œThere was, but it couldnā€™t be held. Our president had to go to another one that heā€™s president ofā ā€”the Broadwood Interurban. Itā€™s in difficulties, Iā€™m afraid, because of too high wages and too much competition by motorcycles and small cars. I hope Dan can straighten it out.ā€

ā€œI hope so,ā€ Harlan said. ā€œThat is, strictly as his brother I hope so. As a human being still trying to exist in what was once a comfortable house, I might take another attitude. I live deep in the downtown district now, for my worst sins, and those long Broadwood cars screech every hour, night and day, on a curve not a hundred yards from my library.ā€ He sighed. ā€œBut why should I waste my breath,

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