Lutha walked beside us, showing in his mien something of the proud satisfaction which follows a conviction of having done a good thing.  He looked first at me and then at Petralto, elevating and depressing his ears at our argument, as if he understood all about it.  Perhaps he did; human beings don’t know everything.

People have so much time in the country that it is little wonder that our acquaintance ripened into friendship during the holidays, and that one of my first visits when I had got settled for the winter was to Petralto’s rooms.  Their locality might have cooled some people, but not me.  It does not take much of an education in New York life to find out that the pleasantest, loftiest, handsomest rooms are to be found in the streets not very far “up town;” comfortably contiguous to the best hotels, stores, theatres, picture galleries, and all the other necessaries of a pleasant existence.

He was just leaving the door for a ride in the park, and we went together.  I had refused the park twice within an hour, and had told myself that nothing should induce me to follow that treadmill procession again, yet when he said, in his quiet way, “You had better take half an hour’s ride, Jack,” I felt like going, and I went.

Now just as we got to the Fifth Avenue entrance, a singular thing happened.  Petralto’s pale olive face flushed a bright crimson, his eyes flashed and dropped; he whipped the horse into a furious gallop, as if he would escape something; then became preternaturally calm, drew suddenly up, and stood waiting for a handsome equipage which was approaching.  Its occupants were bending forward to speak to him.  I had no eyes for the gentleman, the girl at his side was so radiantly beautiful.

I heard Petralto promise to call on them, and we passed on; but there was a look on his face which bespoke both sympathy and silence.  He soon complained of the cold, said the park pace irritated him, but still passed and repassed the couple who had caused him such evident suffering, as if he was determined to inure himself to the pain of meeting them.  During this interval I had time to notice the caressing, lover-like attitude of the beauty’s companion, and I said, as they entered a stately house together, “Are they married?”

“Yes.”

“He seems devotedly in love with her.”

“He loved her two years before he saw her.”

“Impossible.”

“Not at all.  I have a mind to tell you the story.”

“Do.  Come home with me, and we will have a quiet dinner together.”

“No.  I need to be alone an hour or two.  Call on me about nine o’clock.”

Petralto’s rooms were a little astonishment to me.  They were luxurious in the extreme, with just that excess of ornament which suggests under-civilization; and yet I found him smoking in a studio destitute of everything but a sleepy-looking sofa, two or three capacious lounging chairs, and the ordinary furniture of an artist’s atelier.  There was a bright fire in the grate, a flood of light from the numerous gas jets, and an atmosphere heavy with the seductive, fragrant vapor of Havana.