Jewel Weed

"I'm sorry I was cross," she said with pretty contrition, but her

prettiness and contrition did not have their usual exhilarating effect

on Dick. Lena even turned and laid her hand softly on his arm. Still he

did not look at her.

"I wasn't hurt by your crossness, dear," he said gently.

* * * * * Among those to open hospitable doors to the bride and groom was Mr.

Early. His house adjoined theirs, and only a hedge separated the two

gardens, old-fashioned, with comfortable seats under wide trees on the

Percival place, elaborately Italian on Mr. Early's domain, but spacious

both, for St. Etienne had the advantage of doing most of its growth

after rapid transit was invented, and had therefore never cribbed and

cabined its population into solid blocks of brick and mortar, but had

given everybody elbow-room, so that its residence district looked much

like the suburbs of older cities.

So Dick and Lena went to dine with Mr. Early, and the bride had the

thrilling delight of sitting between her world-famous host and an

equally illustrious scholar, who had his head with him, extra size, and

was plainly bored to death by his own erudition. It was a large dinner,

and Lena was alert to study every one, both what he did and how he did

it; but chiefly, from her vantage point at the right hand of her host;

did she watch Miss Madeline Elton, who sat near the middle of the table

on the other side, where Lena could study her face over a sea of

violets. Lena was puzzled. Madeline seemed less reposeful and more

charming than she remembered. For an instant she wondered if her own

beauty, now tricked out by jewels, was not cheap beside Miss Elton's

undecorated loveliness. She noted that the men around the table looked

often in Madeline's direction. Even Mr. Early occasionally let his

attention wander from his suave courtesy toward herself, and Lena

resented this. She deeply admired Mr. Early. His was the big and blatant

success which she could easily comprehend, and she exulted at the idea

of sitting at the post of honor beside a man distinguished over the

length and breadth of the land. Once, even her own husband, Richard

Percival, leaned forward and gazed at Madeline as she spoke across the

table, and there was a look in his face that Lena treasured in her

cabinet of unforgiven things. She flushed with anger. Her hatred of Miss

Elton was as old as her acquaintance with her husband, and its growth

had been parallel.

Then her eyes met the glowing glance of a dark face under a turban of

soft white silk, and she turned hastily away.

"I see you are looking at my ceiling, Mrs. Percival," said Mr. Early.

"It is a reproduction of the beautiful fan-tracery in the Henry VII

chapel at Westminster. Doubtless you recognize it. But, alas, it is

impossible to attain the spiritual beauty of the original until age has

laid its sanctifying hand on the carving. This has had but a year of

life for each century that the chapel tracery can boast. And, of course,

I admit that the effect must be modified by the surroundings. A

dining-room can never have the atmosphere of a church, can it, my dear

Mrs. Percival? Though I assure you, I have tried to be consistent in all

the decorations and the furniture of this room."