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The party, like most of those that Mrs. Cumnor gathered about her, was not composed of exceptional beings. The people of the old vanished New York set were not exceptional: they were mostly cut on the same convenient and unobtrusive pattern; but they were often exceedingly “nice.” And this obsolete quality marked every look and gesture of the lady I was scrutinizing.

While these reflections were passing through my mind I was aware that Merrick’s eyes rested still on her. I took a cross-section of his look and found in it neither surprise nor absorption, but only a certain sober pleasure just about at the emotional level of the rest of the room.

If he continued to look at her, his expression seemed to say, it was only because, all things considered, there were fewer reasons for looking at anybody else.

This made me wonder what were the reasons for looking at her; and as a first step toward enlightenment I said:–“I’m sure I’ve seen the lady over there in gray–“

Merrick detached his eyes and turned them on me with a wondering look.

“Seen her? You know her.” He waited. “Don’t you know her? It’s Mrs. Reardon.”

I wondered that he should wonder, for I could not remember, in the Cumnor group or elsewhere, having known any one of the name he mentioned.

“But perhaps,” he continued, “you hadn’t heard of her marriage? You knew her as Mrs. Trant.”

I gave him back his stare. “Not Mrs. Philip Trant?”

“Yes; Mrs. Philip Trant.”

“Not Paulina?”

“Yes–Paulina,” he said, with a just perceptible delay before the name.

In my surprise I continued to stare at him. He averted his eyes from mine after a moment, and I saw that they had strayed back to her. “You find her so changed?” he asked.

Something in his voice acted as a warning signal, and I tried to reduce my astonishment to less unbecoming proportions. “I don’t find that she looks much older.”

“No. Only different?” he suggested, as if there were nothing new to him in my perplexity.

“Yes–awfully different.”

“I suppose we’re all awfully different. To you, I mean–coming from so far?”

“I recognized all the rest of you,” I said, hesitating. “And she used to be the one who stood out most.”

There was a flash, a wave, a stir of something deep down in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “That’s the difference.”

“I see it is. She–she looks worn down. Soft but blurred, like the figures in that tapestry behind her.”

He glanced at her again, as if to test the exactness of my analogy.

“Life wears everybody down,” he said.

“Yes–except those it makes more distinct. They’re the rare ones, of course; but she was rare.”

He stood up suddenly, looking old and tired. “I believe I’ll be off. I wish you’d come down to my place for Sunday…. No, don’t shake hands–I want to slide away unawares.”

He had backed away to the threshold and was turning the noiseless door-knob. Even Mrs. Cumnor’s doorknobs had tact and didn’t tell.

“Of course I’ll come,” I promised warmly. In the last ten minutes he had begun to interest me again.

“All right Good-bye.” Half through the door he paused to add:–“She remembers you. You ought to speak to her.”

“I’m going to. But tell me a little more.” I thought I saw a shade of constraint on his face, and did not add, as I had meant to: “Tell me–because she interests me–what wore her down?” Instead, I asked: “How soon after Trant’s death did she remarry?”

He seemed to make an effort of memory. “It was seven years ago, I think.”

“And is Reardon here to-night?”

“Yes; over there, talking to Mrs. Cumnor.”

I looked across the broken groupings and saw a large glossy man with straw-coloured hair and a red face, whose shirt and shoes and complexion seemed all to have received a coat of the same expensive varnish.

As I looked there was a drop in the talk about us, and I heard Mr. Reardon pronounce in a big booming voice: “What I say is: what’s the good of disturbing things? Thank the Lord, I’m content with what I’ve got!”