product of divided minds and unstable attentions.

She was, in fact, a stranger. Her voice had a bead on it which roused a
perfectly unreasoning physical excitement--the kind of bead which, in
singing, makes all the difference between a church choir and grand
opera. The glow they were accustomed to in her eyes, concentrated itself
into flashes, and the flush that so often, and so adorably, suffused her
face, burnt brighter now in her cheeks and left the rest pale.

And these were true indices of the change that had taken place within
her. From sheer numb incredulity, which was all she had felt as she'd
walked away from Rodney's office door, and from the pain of an
intolerable hurt, she had reacted to a fine glow of indignation. She had
found herself suddenly feeling lighter, older, indescribably more
confident. That dinner was to be gone through with, was it? Well, it
should be! They shouldn't suspect her humiliation or her hurt. She was
conscious suddenly of enormous reserves of power hitherto unsuspected--a
power that could be exercised to any extent she chose, according to her
will.

Her husband, James Randolph reflected, had evidently either been making
love to her, or indulging in the civilized equivalent of beating her; he
was curious to find out which. And having learned from his wife that
Rose was to sit beside him at the table, he made up his mind that he
would make her tell him.

He didn't attempt it, though, during his first talk with her--confined
himself rigorously to the carefully sifted chaff which does duty for
polite conversation over the same hors-d'oeuvres and entrées, from one
dinner to the next, the season round. It wasn't until Eleanor had turned