Well, what does it matter to me?  I have just met a woman who stared at me, and spoke as if she thought I were a lunatic to be afield in this array.  What does anything matter?  Sometimes, when I am with people who see straight, I do take a certain pleasure in looking well, because I am a woman, and nothing can quite take away that pleasure from me; but all the time I know it does not matter, that nothing has really mattered since I was about Peggy’s age and Lyman Wilde quarrelled with me over nothing and vanished into thin air, so far as I was concerned.  I suppose he is comfortably settled with a wife and family somewhere.  It is rather odd, though, that with all my wandering on this side of the water and the other I have never once crossed his tracks.  He may be in the Far East, with a harem.  I never have been in the Far East.  Well, it does not matter to me where he is.  That is ancient history.  On the whole, though, I like the harem idea better than the single wife.  I have what is left to me—­the little things of life, the pretty effects which go to make me pretty (outside Eastridge); the comforts of civilization, travelling and seeing beautiful things, also seeing ugly things to enhance the beautiful.  I have pleasant days in beautiful Florence.  I have friends.  I have everything except—­well, except everything.  That I must do without.  But I will do without it gracefully, with never a whimper, or I don’t know myself.  But now I am worried over Peggy.  I wish I could consult with somebody with sense.  What a woman I am!  I mean, how feminine I am!  I wish I could cure myself of the habit of being feminine.  It is a horrible nuisance; this wishing to consult with somebody when I am worried is so disgustingly feminine.

Well, I have consulted.  I am back in my own room.  It is after supper.  We had three kinds of cake, hot biscuits, and raspberries, and—­a concession to Cyrus—­a platter of cold ham and an egg salad.  He will have something hearty, as he calls it (bless him! he is a good-fellow), for supper.  I am glad, for I should starve on Ada’s New England menus.  I feel better, now that I have consulted, although, when I really consider the matter, I can’t see that I have arrived at any very definite issue.  But I have consulted, and, above all things, with Ned Temple!  I was walking down the street, and I reached his newspaper building.  It is a funny little affair; looks like a toy house.  It is all given up to the mighty affairs of the Eastridge Banner.  In front there is a piazza, and on this piazza sat Ned Temple.  Changed?  Well, yes, poor fellow!  He is thin.  I am so glad he is thin instead of fat; thinness is not nearly so disillusioning.  His hair is iron-gray, but he is, after all, distinguished-looking, and his manners are entirely sophisticated.  He shows at a glance, at a word, that he is a brilliant man, although he is stranded upon such a petty little editorial island.  And—­and he saw me as I am.  He did not change color.  He is too