“I can,” assented Corinna softly; and though she smiled there was a mist over her eyes which made the world appear iridescent.  “Oh, my dear, it is the only way.  Throw away everything else—­every cause, every conviction, every interest—­but keep that one open door into reality.”

The car stopped before his office, and she held out her hand.  “I shall see you to-morrow night?”

He glanced back merrily from the pavement.  “Do you think I shall let you escape me?” Then he turned away and went, with a firm and energetic step, into the building, while Corinna took out her shopping list and studied it thoughtfully.

“Back to the shop,” she said at last.  “I have had enough for one morning.”  As the car started up the street, a smile stirred her lips, “I shall have three unhappy lovers on my hands for the dance to-morrow.”  Then she laughed softly, with a very real sense of humour, “If I am going to sacrifice myself, I may as well do it in the grand manner,” she thought, for Corinna had a royal soul.

CHAPTER XXI

DANCE MUSIC

At breakfast the next morning, Mrs. Culpeper observed, with maternal solicitude, that Stephen was looking more cheerful.  While she poured his coffee, with one eye on the fine old coffee pot and one on the animated face of her son, she reflected that he appeared to have come at last to his senses.  “If he would only stop all this folly and settle down,” she thought.  “Surely it is quite time now for him to become normal again.”  As she looked at him her expression softened, in spite of her general attitude of disapprobation, and the sharp brightness of her eyes gave place to humid tenderness.  Of all her children he had long been her favourite, for the reason, perhaps, that he was the only one who had ever caused her any anxiety; and though she would have gone to the stake cheerfully for all and each of them, there would have been a keener edge to the martyrdom she suffered in Stephen’s behalf.

“Be sure and make a good breakfast, Mr. Culpeper,” she urged, glancing down the table to where her husband was dividing his attention between the morning paper and his oatmeal.  “My poor father used to say that if he didn’t make a good breakfast he felt it all day long.”

“He was right, my dear.  I have no doubt that he was right,” replied Mr. Culpeper, in the tone of solemn sentiment which he reserved for deceased parents.  Though he was dyspeptic by constitution, and inclined to gout and other bodily infirmities, he applied himself philosophically to a heavy breakfast such as his wife’s father had enjoyed.

“Stephen is looking so well this morning,” remarked Mrs. Culpeper in a sprightly voice.  “He has quite a colour.”

Mr. Culpeper rolled his large brown eyes, as handsome and as opaque as chestnuts, in the direction of his son.  Though he would never have observed the improvement unless his wife had called his attention to it, his kind heart was honestly relieved to discover that Stephen looked better.  He had worried a good deal in his sluggish way over what he thought of as “the effect of the war” on his son.  With the strong paternal instinct which beheld every child as a branch on a genealogical tree, he had been as much disturbed as his wife by the gossip which had reached him about the daughter of Gideon Vetch.