face,--"I see nothing but lights and flowers, I hear nothing but music
and laughter; and all--lights and flowers and music and laughter--seem
to meet in this room, where we met so often to arrange
our--inevitabilities." The word appeared to attract him.
"Josephine,"--with a sudden change of voice and manner,--"Josephine,
how beautiful you were!"

The old lady nodded her head without looking from her cards.

"They used to say," with sad conviction of the truth of his
testimony--"the men used to say that your beauty was irresistible.
None ever withstood you. None ever could."

That, after all, was Mr. Horace's great charm with madame; he was so
faithful to the illusions of his youth. As he looked now at her, one
could almost feel the irresistibility of which he spoke.

"It was only their excuse, perhaps; we could not tell at the time; we
cannot tell even now when we think about it. They said then, talking
as men talk over such things, that you were the only one who could
remain yourself under the circumstances; you were the only one who
could know, who could will, under the circumstances. It was their
theory; men can have only theories about such things." His voice
dropped, and he seemed to drop too, into some abysm of thought.

Madame looked into the mirror, where she could see the face of the one
who alone could retain her presence of mind under the circumstances
suggested by Mr. Horace. She could also have seen, had she wished it,
among the reflected bric-a-brac of the mantel, the corner of the frame
that held the picture of her husband, but peradventure, classing it