"She is simply sorry for him," he said to himself; and by the time he had finished his dinner it began to come back to him that he was sorry, too.

Mrs.Vivian was probably sorry as well, for she had a slightly confused and preoccupied look--a look from which, even in the midst of his chagrin, Bernard extracted some entertainment.

It was Mrs.
Vivian's intermittent conscience that had been reminded of one of its lapses; her meeting with Gordon Wright had recalled the least exemplary episode of her life--the time when she whispered mercenary counsel in the ear of a daughter who sat, grave and pale, looking at her with eyes that wondered.

Mrs.Vivian blushed a little now, when she met Bernard's eyes; and to remind herself that she was after all a virtuous woman, talked as much as possible about superior and harmless things--the beauty of the autumn weather, the pleasure of seeing French papas walking about on Sunday with their progeny in their hands, the peculiarities of the pulpit-oratory of the country as exemplified in the discourse of a Protestant pasteur whom she had been to hear in the morning.
When they rose from table and went back into her little drawing-room, she left her daughter alone for awhile with Bernard.

The two were standing together before the fire; Bernard watched Mrs.Vivian close the door softly behind her.