Edna stayed and dined with Mrs. Highcamp upon being urged to do so.

Arobin also remained and sent away his drag.

The dinner was quiet and uninteresting, save for the cheerful efforts

of Arobin to enliven things. Mrs. Highcamp deplored the absence of her

daughter from the races, and tried to convey to her what she had missed

by going to the "Dante reading" instead of joining them. The girl held

a geranium leaf up to her nose and said nothing, but looked knowing and

noncommittal. Mr. Highcamp was a plain, bald-headed man, who only

talked under compulsion. He was unresponsive. Mrs. Highcamp was full of

delicate courtesy and consideration toward her husband. She addressed

Advertisement..

most of her conversation to him at table. They sat in the library after

dinner and read the evening papers together under the droplight; while

the younger people went into the drawing-room nearby and talked. Miss

Highcamp played some selections from Grieg upon the piano. She seemed to

have apprehended all of the composer's coldness and none of his poetry.

While Edna listened she could not help wondering if she had lost her

taste for music.

When the time came for her to go home, Mr. Highcamp grunted a lame offer

to escort her, looking down at his slippered feet with tactless concern.

It was Arobin who took her home. The car ride was long, and it was late

when they reached Esplanade Street. Arobin asked permission to enter for

a second to light his cigarette--his match safe was empty. He filled his

match safe, but did not light his cigarette until he left her, after she

had expressed her willingness to go to the races with him again.

Edna was neither tired nor sleepy. She was hungry again, for the

Highcamp dinner, though of excellent quality, had lacked abundance. She

rummaged in the larder and brought forth a slice of Gruyere and some

crackers. She opened a bottle of beer which she found in the icebox.

Edna felt extremely restless and excited. She vacantly hummed a

fantastic tune as she poked at the wood embers on the hearth and munched

a cracker.

She wanted something to happen--something, anything; she did not know

what. She regretted that she had not made Arobin stay a half hour to

talk over the horses with her. She counted the money she had won. But

there was nothing else to do, so she went to bed, and tossed there for

hours in a sort of monotonous agitation.

In the middle of the night she remembered that she had forgotten to

write her regular letter to her husband; and she decided to do so next

day and tell him about her afternoon at the Jockey Club. She lay wide

awake composing a letter which was nothing like the one which she wrote

next day. When the maid awoke her in the morning Edna was dreaming of

Mr. Highcamp playing the piano at the entrance of a music store on Canal

Street, while his wife was saying to Alcee Arobin, as they boarded an

Esplanade Street car:




Most Popular