“You can pack up mine, and I’ll pack up yours,” he said softly.

“That’s a sweet way of putting it; you’re one of those light-hearted people who don’t mind saying goodbyes.”

“I say, Roselle, do you?”

“Saying good-bye to fellow-souls is always sad.”

On the windy deck she used to wear a dark purple velvet hat slouched down and pinned close against her darker hair.  It showed up the whiteness of her face, which even the saltwinds could not whip into colour, under the coating of white cosmetic almost imperceptibly laid on.  Osborn loved that hat, as he loved the graceful tilt of her skirt and the fragility of her blouses; and sometimes it occurred to him to question why men’s wives couldn’t wear things like that.  One sunny afternoon they had, when, instead of playing bridge, they sat in a sheltered corner on deck and talked.

“Where are you putting up in New York?” she asked that afternoon.

“At the Waldorf Astoria.”

“Are you really?” she said, and she thought in her shallow mind that he must be very well off indeed.

Osborn did not tell her that his firm sent him to an expensive hotel for their own ends; it was pleasant to have her thinking what she did.  He asked if he might call upon her in New York; if she’d have supper with him sometimes; come for a run in his two-seater which he was taking over with him.  They made a dozen plans which, after all, could not hurt Marie, and the prospects of which were charming to a degree.

They landed just before Christmas.

Osborn had written his Christmas letters to his wife and children on board, and his first errand on landing was to mail hastily-chosen gifts to them.  A box of sweets for the kids, a bottle of scent for Marie, these seemed to suit the occasion quite well.  He even remembered a picture-postcard view of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel to bear seasonable wishes to Grannie Amber.  Then Roselle claimed him.

Osborn had a good deal of odd time to put at her disposal, and she disposed of it with no uncertain hand.  His way was not so uphill as he had expected; within a week he was touching big commission, bigger than he had dreamed of, with the prospects of plenty to follow.  And driving his electric-blue, silver-fitted Runaway two-seater about New York, or over to Brooklyn, he placed Roselle in her inevitable fur coat and slouched down purple velvet hat, as a splendid business asset, beside him.  At least he told his conscience that a smart woman in a car is unparalleled advertisement for it and perhaps he was right; but that was not the reason for her presence there.

When they said good-bye, under the wintry trees of the remotest part of a great park, it hurt him.  He set his hands suddenly on her shoulders, and looked into her eyes; and then, it being almost dusk, and no one very near, he slid an arm round her, and held her to him for one swift instant.  When she let him kiss her, with a yielding as passionate as response, he was surprised at his own stupidity in not tasting such sweets before.