upon himself.  It would have savored no more of conceit that the seeing his face in a mirror.  He would simply have thought it the truth.  But now, since he was always forgetting that other women did not know the one woman’s secret, and looked upon him as an unmarried man, and therefore a fit target for their innocent wiles, the preening of their dainty dove plumage, he said to himself that he must have been mistaken.  That Evelyn had looked at him as she had done only because she was nervous and overwrought, and the least thing was sufficient to disturb her equilibrium.

However, he was very careful not to address Evelyn particularly again, but that one little episode had been sufficient for the girl to build another air castle upon.  That night when she went home she was radiant with happiness.  Her color had returned, smiles lit her whole face.  Ineffable depths of delight sparkled in her eyes.  It seemed almost a sacrilege to look at the young girl, whose heart was so plainly evident in her face.  Maria looked at her, and felt a chill in her own heart.

“Something must have happened,” she said to herself.  She thought that Evelyn would tell her, but she did not; she ate her supper with more appetite than she had shown for many a week.  Her gayety in the evening, when some neighbors came in, was so unrestrained and childlike that it was fairly infectious.  They sat out on the front door-step.  It had been a warm day, and the evening cool was welcome and laughter floated out into the street.  It was laughter over nothing, but irresistible, induced because of the girl’s exuberant mood.  She felt that night as if there was no meaning in the world except happiness and fun.  George Ramsey, going home about nine o’clock, heard the laughter, and shrugged his shoulders rather bitterly.  Lily had made him such a good wife, according to the tenets of wifehood, that he had apparently no reason to complain.  She was always perfectly amiable and affectionate, not violently affectionate, but with the sort of affection which does not ruffle laces nor disarrange hair, and that he had always considered the most desirable sort of affection in the long-run.  She and his mother got on very well also—­that is, apparently.  Lily, it was true, always had her way, but she had it so gently and unobtrusively that one really doubted if she were not herself the conceder.  She always looked the same, she dressed daintily, and arranged her fair hair beautifully.  George did not own to himself that sameness irritated him when it was such charming sameness.  However, he did sometimes realize, and sternly put it away from him, a little sting when he happened to meet Maria.  He had a feeling as if he had gone from a waxwork show and met a real woman.