“I don’t like her perfume,” she observed, with an affected contortion of her nostrils, “there’s something to be said for the odour of sanctity, after all.”

“Why, I thought it delicious,” returned Laura, as if astonished.  “It even occurred to me to ask her where she got it.”

“Well, I’m thankful you didn’t,” exclaimed Gerty; and she concluded dismally after a moment, “What hurts me most is to think I’ve wasted bouquets on her over the footlights, for a more perfectly odious person—­”

“I found her wonderfully handsome,” remarked Laura, in a voice which had a curious quality of remoteness, as if she spoke from some dream-like state of mental abstraction.  “Wonderfully handsome,” she insisted, indignant at the scornful denial in Gerty’s look.

“Well, it’s the kind of handsomeness that makes me want to scratch her in the face,” rejoined Gerty, with the unshakable courage of her impressions.

Turning away from her friend, Laura went over to the desk as if drawn in spite of her resolution, by the large sealed envelope lying on the white blotter.  The handwriting of the address, with its bold, free flourish at the end, appeared to fascinate her eyes, for after looking at it attentively a moment, she took it up and brought it over to the hearth where Gerty stood.

“Yes, she is wonderfully handsome,” she repeated; and her tone was so indifferent that it came with a shock of surprise to Gerty, when she bent over and laid the letter upon the burning logs.  Dropping on her knees, she watched the paper catch fire, redden in the flame, turn to ashes, and at last dissolve in smoke.  Then she leaned forward and pushed the logs together, as if she wished to destroy some last vestige of the words which were still visible to her eyes.

“Laura!” called Gerty sharply.  She had made a step forward, but as Laura rose from her knees and faced her, she fell back into her former attitude.

“If you want to tell him,” said Laura coldly, “you may do it when he comes.  I shan’t mind it in the least.”

“Tell him!” cried Gerty, and her voice shook with a tremor she could not control, “but, oh!  Laura, what made you do it?”

She knew that she wanted to go away by herself and weep; but she could not tell at the moment whether it was for Laura or for her own disappointment that she was more concerned.  Her whole outlook on life was altered by the thing which Laura had done; she felt that she no longer believed in anybody and that it was impossible for her to go on living as she had lived until to-day.

“I don’t know,” replied Laura, with a curiosity so vague that it sounded almost impersonal, “I don’t know why I did it.”  As she uttered the words the question seemed to absorb her thoughts; then, before Gerty caught the sound of Kemper’s approaching footsteps, she knew that he must be coming by the abruptness of the change with which Laura spoke.

“I wonder why it is that men never appreciate the necessity for tea!” she exclaimed, and laughing she went quickly toward the door.  “I don’t believe you’d have cared if you’d found us starving on your threshold,” she wound up with reproachful gayety.