Do you know," she resumed after a moment's thought, "that, though he's probably the brainiest man of our acquaintance, I sometimes seriously wonder what you see in him." A flush of anger darkened Perry's clear skin, and this sudden change gave him an almost brutal look.

"I'd like to know if I'm a blamed fool ?" he demanded.
Her merriment struck pleasantly on his ears.
"Do you want to destroy the illusion in which I married you ?" she asked.
"It was, after all, simply the belief that size is virtue." The flush passed, and he took in a full breath which expanded his broad chest.

"Well, I'm big enough," he answered, "but it isn't Adam's fault that he hasn't got my muscle." With a leisurely glance in the mirror, he settled his necktie in place, twisted the short ends of his moustache, and then stooped to kiss his wife before going out.
"Don't you let yourself get seedy and lose your looks," he said as he left the room.
When he had gone she made a sudden ineffectual effort to rise from bed; then as if oppressed by a fatigue that was moral rather than physical, she fell back again and turned her face wearily from the mirror.

So the morning slipped away, the luncheon hour came and went, and it was not until the afternoon that she gathered energy to dress herself and begin anew the inevitable and agonising pursuit of pleasure.

The temptation of the morning had been to let go--to relax in despair from the fruitlessness of her endeavor--and the result of this brief withdrawal was apparent in the order which she gave the footman before the open door of her carriage.
"To Miss Wilde's first"-- the words ended abruptly and she turned eagerly, with outstretched hand, to a man who had hurried toward her from the corner of Fifth Avenue.
"So you haven't forgotten me in six months, Arnold," she said, with a sweetness in which there was an almost imperceptible tone of bitterness.
He took her hand in both of his, pressing it for an instant in a quick muscular grasp which had in it something of the nervous vigor that lent a peculiar vibrant quality to his voice.
"And I couldn't have done it in six years," he replied, as a singularly charming smile illumined his forcible rather than regular features, and brought out the genial irony in his expressive light gray eyes.