A great deal came and went between us without profaning the occasion, so that I could feel at the end of twenty minutes as if I knew almost everything he might in kindness have to tell me; knew even why Flora, while I stared at her from the stalls, had misled me by the use of ivory and crystal and by appearing to recognise me and smile.

She leaned back in her chair in luxurious ease: I had from the first become aware that the way she fingered her pearls was a sharp image of the wedded state.

Nothing of old had seemed wanting to her assurance, but I hadn't then dreamed of the art with which she would wear that assurance as a married woman.

She had taken him when everything had failed; he had taken her when she herself had done so.

His embarrassed eyes confessed it all, confessed the deep peace he found in it.