Hayne’s existence. It was like stepping from a gondola to an ocean steamer; at first she was dazed by the throb of the screw and the rush of the parting waters, but gradually she felt herself infected by the exhilaration of getting to a fixed place in the shortest possible time. She could make sufficient allowance for the versatility of her moods to know that, a few weeks after her return to Paris, all that seemed most strenuous in Mrs. Hayne’s occupations would fade to unreality; but that did not defend her from the strong spell of the moment. In its light her own life seemed vacuous, her husband’s aims trivial as the subtleties of Chinese ivory carving; and she wondered if he walked in the same revealing flash.

            Some three weeks after the arrival of the Corbetts in Mount Vernon Street it became manifest that Mrs. Hayne had overtaxed her strength and must return for an undetermined period to her lounge. The life of restricted activity to which this necessity condemned her left her an occasional hour of leisure when there seemed no more letters to be dictated, no more reports to be read; and Corbett, always sure to do the right thing, was at hand to speed such unoccupied moments with the ready charm of his talk.

            One day when, after sitting with her for some time, he departed to the club, Mrs. Hayne, turning to Delia, who came in to replace him, said, emphatically, “My dear, he’s delightful.”

            “Oh, Aunt Mary, so are you!” burst gratefully from Mrs. Corbett.

            Mrs. Hayne smiled. “Have you suspended your judgment of me until now?” she asked.

            “No; but your liking each other seems to complete you both.”

            “Really, Delia, your husband couldn’t have put that more gracefully. But sit down and tell me about him.”

            “Tell you about him?” repeated Delia, thinking of the voluminous letters in which she had enumerated to Mrs. Hayne the sum of her husband’s merits.

            “Yes,” Mrs. Hayne continued, cutting, as she talked, the pages of a report on state lunatic asylums; “for instance, you’ve never told me why so charming an American has condemned America to the hard fate of being obliged to get on without him.”

            “You and he will never agree on that point, Aunt Mary,” said Mrs. Corbett, coloring.

            “Never mind; I rather like listening to reasons that I know beforehand I’m bound to disagree with; it saves so much mental effort. And besides, how can you tell? I’m very uncertain.”

            “You are very broad-minded, but you’ll never understand his just having drifted into it. Any definite reason would seem to you better than that.”

            “Ah—he drifted into it?”

            “Well, yes. You know his sister, who married the Comte de Vitrey and went to live in Paris, was very unhappy after her marriage; and when Laurence’s mother died there was no one left to look after her; and so Laurence went abroad in order to be near her. After a few years Monsieur de Vitrey died too; but by that time Laurence didn’t care to come back.”

            “Well,” said Mrs. Hayne, “I see nothing so shocking in that. Your husband can gratify his tastes much more easily in Europe than in America; and, after all, that is what we’re all secretly striving to do. I’m sure if there were more lunatic asylums and poor-houses and hospitals in Europe than there are here I should be very much inclined to go and live there myself.”

            Delia laughed. “I knew you would like Laurence,” she said, with a wisdom bred of the event.

            “Of course I like him; he’s a liberal education. It’s very interesting to study the determining motives in such a man’s career. How old is your husband, Delia?”

            “Laurence is fifty-two.”

            “And when did he go abroad to look after his sister?”

            “Let me see—when he was about twenty-eight; it was in 1867, I think.”

            “And before that he had lived in America?”

            “Yes, the greater part of the time.”

            “Then of course he was in the war?” Mrs. Hayne continued, laying down her pamphlet. “You’ve never told me about that. Did he see any active service?”

            As she spoke Delia grew pale; for a moment she sat looking blankly at her aunt.

            “I don’t think he was in the war at all,” she said at length, in a low tone.

            Mrs. Hayne stared at her. “Oh, you must be mistaken,” she said, decidedly. “Why shouldn’t he have been in the war? What else could he have been doing?”

            Mrs. Corbett was silent. All the men of her family, all the men of her friends’ families, had fought in the war; Mrs. Hayne’s husband had been killed at Bull Run, and one of Delia’s cousins at Gettysburg. Ever since she could remember it had been regarded as a matter of course by those about her that every man of her husband’s generation who was neither lame, halt, nor blind should have fought in the war.