"Did you enjoy it?" she asked politely of his reading. "Extremely,"
he replied. "The American Impressions of Tyrone Power, the English
actor, through eighteen thirty-three and four. His account of a
European packet with its handbells and Saratoga water and breakfast
of spitch-cock is inimitable. I'd like to have sat at Cato's then,
with a julep or hail-storm, and watched the trotting races."

Elouise Lowrie rose unsteadily, confused with dozing; but almost
immediately she gathered herself into a relentless propriety and a
formal goodnight.

"What has been running through that mysterious mind of yours?"

"I had a letter from Dodge," she told him simply; "and I was
thinking a little about the past." He exhibited the nice unstrained
interest of his admirable personality. "Is he still in France?" he
queried. "Pleydon should be a strong man; I am sure we are both
conscious of a little disappointment in him." She said: "I'll read
you his letter, it's on the table.

"'You will see, my dear Linda, that I have not moved from the Rue de
Penthievre, although I have given up the place at Etretat, and I am
not going to renew the lease here. Rodin insists, and I coming to
agree with him, that I ought to be in America. But the serious
attitude here toward art, how impossible that word has been made, is
charming. And you will be glad to know that I have had some success
in the French good opinion. A marble, Cotton Mather, that I cut from
the stone, has been bought for the Luxembourg.