' We seem to have got beyond that."
"Oh, we have got beyond everything! There is no precedent for us in the
past"--she felt for her hat pins--"and no hope in the future." She put off
the winged circlet that crowned her hair, and Mrs. Thorne took it from her.
Almost shyly the middle-aged woman, who had never herself been even pretty,
looked at the sad young beauty, sitting uncovered in the moonlight.
"You should never wear anything on your head. It is desecration."
"Is it? I always conform, you know. I wear anything, do anything, that is
demanded."
"Ah, but the head--such hair! I wonder that I do not hate you when I think
of my poor Willy."
"You will hate me when I am gone," said the beautiful one wearily; "you
may count on the same revulsion in him. I know it. I have been through it.
There is nothing so loathsome in the bitter end as mere good looks."
"Ah, but why"--the mother checked herself. Was she groveling already for
Willy's sake? She had stifled the truth, and accepted thanks not her due,
and listened to praise of her own magnanimity. Where were the night's
surprises to leave her?
II
Mr. Thorne had changed his seat, and the sound of a fresh chair creaking
under his comfortable weight was a touch of commonplace welcomed by his
wife with her usual laugh, half amused and half apologetic.
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