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The Picture’s beautiful face settled for just an instant in an expression of disappointment. “Of course,” she replied slowly, “if you wish it. But I thought you said,” she went on with a sweet smile, “that this was perfect. Now you want to go out again. Isn’t this better than a hot theatre? You might put up with it for one evening, don’t you think?”

“Put up with it!” exclaimed Stuart, enthusiastically; “I could spend every evening so. It was only a suggestion. It wasn’t that I wanted to go so much as that I thought Seldon might be a little hurt if I didn’t. But I can tell him you were not feeling very well, and that we will come some other evening. He generally likes to have us there on the first night, that’s all. But he’ll understand.”

“Oh,” said the Picture, “if you put it in the light of a duty to your friend, of course we will go.”

“Not at all,” replied Stuart, heartily; “I will read something. I should really prefer it. How would you like something of Browning’s?”

“Oh, I read all of Browning once,” said the Picture, “I think I should like something new.”

Stuart gasped at this, but said nothing, and began turning over the books on the centre table. He selected one of the monthly magazines, and choosing a story which neither of them had read, sat down comfortably in front of the fire, and finished it without interruption and to the satisfaction of the Picture and himself. The story had made the half hour pass very pleasantly, and they both commented on it with interest.

“I had an experience once myself something like that,” said Stuart, with a pleased smile of recollection; “it happened in Paris”–he began with the deliberation of a man who is sure of his story–“and it turned out in much the same way. It didn’t begin in Paris; it really began while we were crossing the English Channel to–“

“Oh, you mean about the Russian who took you for some one else and had you followed,” said the Picture. “Yes, that was like it, except that in your case nothing happened.”

Stuart took his cigar from between his lips and frowned severely at the lighted end for some little time before he spoke.

“My dear,” he remonstrated, gently, “you mustn’t tell me I’ve told you all my old stories before. It isn’t fair. Now that I’m married, you see, I can’t go about and have new experiences, and I’ve got to make use of the old ones.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” exclaimed the Picture, remorsefully. “I didn’t mean to be rude. Please tell me about it. I should like to hear it again, ever so much. I should like to hear it again, really.”

“Nonsense,” said Stuart, laughing and shaking his head. “I was only joking; personally I hate people who tell long stories. That doesn’t matter. I was thinking of something else.”

He continued thinking of something else, which was, that though he had been in jest when he spoke of having given up the chance of meeting fresh experiences, he had nevertheless described a condition, and a painfully true one. His real life seemed to have stopped, and he saw himself in the future looking back and referring to it, as though it were the career of an entirely different person, of a young man, with quick sympathies which required satisfying, as any appetite requires food. And he had an uncomfortable doubt that these many ever-ready sympathies would rebel if fed on only one diet.

The Picture did not interrupt him in his thoughts, and he let his mind follow his eyes as they wandered over the objects above him on the mantle-shelf. They all meant something from the past,–a busy, wholesome past which had formed habits of thought and action, habits he could no longer enjoy alone, and which, on the other hand, it was quite impossible for him to share with any one else. He was no longer to be alone.