Margaret despised the tube and he wished for the short breath of sea air which he would get on the Courtland ferry.

He glanced after her retreating black skirts with the glimpses of yellow, regretfully, before he turned his back and turned toward his own slip.

And he glanced the more regretfully because this morning, with all his admiration of his wife, he had a dim sense of something puzzling which arose like a cloud of mystery between them.
Wilbur Edes sailing across the river had, however, no conception of the change which had begun in his little world.

It was only a shake of the kaleidoscope of an unimportant life, resulting in a different combination of atoms, but to each individual it would be a tremendous event partaking of the nature of a cataclysm.

That morning he had seen upon Margaret's charming face an expression which made it seem as the face of a stranger.