Stribling.  It was the one flaw in Corinna’s perfection; it was the black patch on the stainless cheek, which had always made her adorable to Stephen.  Like the snow-white lock waving back from her forehead, it intensified the youth in her face.  He had often wondered if she could have been half so lovely when she was a girl, before the faint shadows and the tender little lines lent depth and mystery to her eyes, and the single white lock swept back amid the powdered dusk of her hair.

While the young man walked rapidly up Franklin Street, he saw before him the long delightful room beyond the pyramidal cedars and the hedge of box.  He saw the ruddy glow of the fire mingling with the paler light of amber lamps, and this mingled radiance shining on the rich rugs, the few old brocades, and the rare English prints which covered the walls.  He saw wide-open creamy roses in alabaster bowls which were scattered everywhere, on tables, on stools, on window-seats, and on the rich carving of the Spanish desk in one corner.  Against the curtains of gold silk there was the bough of twisted pine he had broken, and against the pine branch stood the figure of Corinna in her gown of soft red, which melted like a spray of autumn foliage into the colours of the room.  She was a tall woman, with a glorious head and eyes that reminded Stephen of a forest pool in autumn.  Who had first said of her, he wondered, that she looked like an October morning?

As he approached the shop the glow shone out on him through the dull gold curtains, and he traced the crooked pine bough sweeping across the thin silk background like the bold free sketch of a Japanese print.  When he rang the bell a minute later, the door was opened by Corinna, who was holding a basket of marigolds.

“We were just going,” she said, “as soon as I had put these flowers in water.”

She drew back into the room, bending over the low brown bowl that she was filling, while Stephen went over to the fire, and greeted the two old men who were sitting in deep arm chairs on either side of the hearth.  It was like stepping into another world, he thought, as he inhaled a full breath of the warmth and the fragrance of roses; it was as if a door into a dream had suddenly opened, and he had passed out of the night and the cold into a place where all was colour and fragrance and pleasant magic.  The other was real life—­life for all but the happy few, he found himself thinking—­this was merely the enchanted fairy-ring where children played at making believe.

“I hoped I’d catch you,” he said, stretching out his hands to the log fire.  “I felt somehow that you hadn’t gone, late as it is.”  While he spoke he was thinking, not of Corinna, but of the strange woman he had left in the Square.  Queer how that incident had bitten into his mind.  Try as he might he couldn’t shake himself free from it.

“Father is going to some dreadful public dinner,” answered Corinna.  “I stayed with him here so he wouldn’t have to wait at the club.  It won’t matter about me.  The car is coming for me, and I don’t dine until eight.  Stay awhile and we’ll talk,” she added with her cheerful smile.  “I haven’t seen you for ages, and you look as if you had something to tell me.”