While she was crossing the street a man joined her; and glancing up as soon as she was clear of the traffic, she saw that it was Judge Crowborough.  In the last seven years her dislike for him had gradually disappeared, and though she had never found him attractive, she had grown to accept the general estimate of his character and ability.  A man so gifted ought not to be judged as severely as poorer or less actively intelligent mortals; and as long as other men did not judge him, she felt no inclination to usurp so unfeminine a prerogative.  He had always been kind to her, and she understood now from his manner that he meant to be still kinder.  It occurred to her at once that he knew of George’s infatuation for Florrie, and that he was chivalrously extending to George’s wife a sympathy which he would probably have withheld in such circumstances from his own.  Had it been possible she would have liked to explain to him that in her case his sympathy was not needed; but she realized, with resentment, that one of her most galling burdens would be the wasted pity which her unfortunate situation would inspire in the friends of the family.  Social conventions made it impossible for her to tell the world, including Judge Crowborough, that George’s infidelity was a matter of slight importance to her, since it struck only at her pride, not at her heart.  Her pride, it is true, had suffered sharply for an hour; but so superficial was the wound that the distraction of seeking work had been almost sufficient to heal it.

“A most extraordinary day for January,” remarked the judge as they reached a corner.  “You hardly need your furs, the air is so mild.”

Overhead small, birdlike clouds drifted in flocks across a sky of changeable brightness, and the wind, blowing past the tray of a flower vendor at the corner, was faintly scented with violets.  It was one of those rare days when happiness seems as natural as the wind or the sunlight, when the wildest dreams appear not too wild to come true in reality, when one hopes by instinct and believes, not with the reason, but with the blood.  To Gabriella, forgetting her humiliation, it was a day when life for the sake of the mere act of living—­when life, in spite of disappointment and loss and treachery and shame, was enough to set the heart bounding with happiness.  For she was one of those who loved life, not for what it brought to her of pleasure, but for what it was in itself.

“Yes, it is a lovely afternoon,” she answered, and added impulsively:  “It is good to be alive, isn’t it?” She had forgotten George, but even if she had remembered him, it would have made little difference.  For six years, not for a few hours, George had been lost to her; and in six years one has time to forget almost anything.