down, and Babette's husband, John
Boyce, was alone in the house. It was the
first year of his marriage, and he missed
Babette. But then, as he often said to him-
self, he ought never to have married her. He
did it from pure selfishness, and because he
was determined to possess the most illusive,
tantalizing, elegant, and utterly unmoral little
creature that the sun shone upon. He wanted
her because she reminded him of birds, and
flowers, and summer winds, and other exqui-
site things created for the delectation of
mankind. He neither expected nor desired
her to think. He had half-frightened her into
marrying him, had taken her to a poor man's
home, provided her with no society such as
she had been accustomed to, and he had no
reasonable cause of complaint when she
answered the call of summer and flitted away,
like a butterfly in the morning sunshine, to
the place where the flowers grew.

He wrote to her every evening, sitting in
the stifling, ugly house, and poured out his
soul as if it were a libation to a goddess.
She sometimes answered by telegraph, some-
times by a perfumed note. He schooled him-
self not to feel hurt. Why should Babette
write? Does a goldfinch indict epistles; or
a humming-bird study composition; or a