She returned to the library, where the fire was beginning to send a bright blaze through the twilight. It flashed on the bindings of Hazeldean’s many books, and she smiled absently at the welcome it held out. A latch-key rattled, and she heard her husband’s step, and the sound of his cough below in the hall.

“What madness — what madness!” she murmured.

Slowly — how slowly for a young man! — he mounted the stairs, and still coughing came into the library. She ran to him and took him in her arms.

“Charlie! How could you? In this weather? It’s nearly dark!”

His long thin face lit up with a deprecating smile. “I suppose Susan’s betrayed me, eh? Don’t be cross. You’ve missed such a show! The Fifth Avenue Hotel’s been on fire.”

“Yes; I know.” She paused, just perceptibly. I DIDN’T miss it, though — I rushed across Madison Square for a look at it myself.”

“You did? You were there too? What fun!” The idea appeared to fill him with boyish amusement.

“Naturally I was! On my way home from Cousin Cecilia’s . . . ”

“Ah, of course. I’d forgotten you were going there. But how odd, then, that we didn’t meet!”

“If we HAD I should have dragged you home long ago. I’ve been in at least half an hour, and the fire was already over when I got there. What a baby you are to have stayed out so long, staring at smoke and a fire-engine!”

He smiled, still holding her, and passing his gaunt hand softly and wistfully over her head. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve been indoors, safely sheltered, and drinking old Mrs. Parrett’s punch. The old lady saw me from her window, and sent one of the Wesson boys across the street to fetch me in. They had just finished a family luncheon. And Sillerton Jackson, who was there, drove me home. So you see, — ”

He released her, and moved toward the fire, and she stood motionless, staring blindly ahead, while the thoughts spun through her mind like a mill-race.

“Sillerton Jackson — ” she echoed, without in the least knowing what she said.

“Yes; he has the gout again — luckily for me! — and his sister’s brougham came to the Parretts’ to fetch him.”

She collected herself. “You’re coughing more than you did yesterday,” she accused him.

“Oh, well — the air’s sharpish. But I shall be all right presently . . . Oh, those roses!” He paused in admiration before his writing-table.

Her face glowed with a reflected pleasure, though all the while the names he had pronounced — “The Parretts, the Wessons, Sillerton Jackson” — were clanging through her brain like a death-knell.

“They ARE lovely, aren’t they?” she beamed.

“Much too lovely for me. You must take them down to the drawing-room.”

“No; we’re going to have tea up here.”

“That’s jolly — it means there’ll be no visitors, I hope?”

She nodded, smiling.

“Good! But the roses — no, they mustn’t be wasted on this desert air. You’ll wear them in your dress this evening?”

She started perceptibly, and moved slowly back toward the hearth.

“This evening? . . . Oh, I’m not going to Mrs. Struthers’s” she said, remembering.

“Yes, you are. Dearest — I want you to!”

“But what shall you do alone all the evening? With that cough, you won’t go to sleep till late.”

“Well, if I don’t I’ve a lot of new books to keep me busy.”

“Oh, your books —!” She made a little gesture, half teasing, half impatient, in the direction of the freshly cut volumes stacked up beside his student lamp. It was an old joke between them that she had never been able to believe anyone could really “care for reading.” Long as she and her husband had lived together, this passion of his remained for her as much of a mystery as on the day when she had first surprised him, mute and absorbed, over what the people she had always lived with would have called “a deep book.” It was her first encounter with a born reader; or at least, the few she had known had been, like her stepmother, the retired opera-singer, feverish devourers of circulating library fiction: she had never before lived in a house with books in it. Gradually she had learned to take a pride in Hazeldean’s reading, as if it had been some rare accomplishment; she had perceived that it reflected credit on him, and was even conscious of its adding to the charm of his talk, a charm she had always felt without being able to define it. But still, in her heart of hearts she regarded books as a mere expedient, and felt sure that they were only an aid to patience, like jackstraws or a game of patience, with the disadvantage of requiring a greater mental effort.

“Shan’t you be too tired to read tonight?” she questioned wistfully.

“Too tired? Why, you goose, reading is the greatest rest in the world! — I want you to go to Mrs. Struthers’s dear; I want to see you again in that blac............