over. Lowrie will depend more on you. I may have my fun about the
capital of Louisiana, Linda, but I have the greatest confidence in
your wisdom. God knows what an unhappy experience your childhood
was, but it has given you a superb worldly balance."

"I suppose you're saying that I am cold," she told him. "It must be
true, because it is repeated by every one. Yet, at times, I used to be
very different--you'd never imagine what a romantic thrill or strange
ideas were inside of me. Like a memory of a deep woods, and--and the
loveliest adventure. Often I would hear music as clearly as possible,
and it made me want I don't know what terrifically."

"An early experience," he replied. Suddenly she saw that he was
tired, his face was lined and dejected. "You read too much," Linda
declared. He said: "But only out of the printed book." She wondered
vainly what he meant. As he stood before the glimmering coals, in
the room saturated in repose, she wished that she might give him
more; she wanted to spend herself in a riot of feeling on Arnaud and
their children. What a detestable character she had! Her desire, her
efforts, were wasted.

He went about putting up the windows and closing the outside
shutters, a confirmed habit. Linda rose with her invariable sense of
separation, the feeling that, bound on a journey with a hidden
destination, she was only temporarily in a place of little
importance. It was like being always in her hat and jacket. Arnaud
shook down the grate; then he gazed over the room; it was all, she
was sure, as it had been a century ago, as it should be--all except
herself.