When he had gone she made a sudden ineffectual effort to rise from bed;
then as if oppressed by a fatigue that was moral rather than physical,
she fell back again and turned her face wearily from the mirror. So the
morning slipped away, the luncheon hour came and went, and it was not
until the afternoon that she gathered energy to dress herself and begin
anew the inevitable and agonising pursuit of pleasure. The temptation of
the morning had been to let go--to relax in despair from the
fruitlessness of her endeavor--and the result of this brief withdrawal
was apparent in the order which she gave the footman before the open
door of her carriage.

"To Miss Wilde's first"--the words ended abruptly and she turned
eagerly, with outstretched hand, to a man who had hurried toward her
from the corner of Fifth Avenue.

"So you haven't forgotten me in six months, Arnold," she said, with a
sweetness in which there was an almost imperceptible tone of bitterness.

He took her hand in both of his, pressing it for an instant in a quick
muscular grasp which had in it something of the nervous vigor that lent
a peculiar vibrant quality to his voice.

"And I couldn't have done it in six years," he replied, as a singularly
charming smile illumined his forcible rather than regular features, and
brought out the genial irony in his expressive light gray eyes. "If I'd
gone to Europe to forget you it would have been time thrown away, but I
had something better on my hands than that--I've been buying French
racing automobiles--"