E. A. S.
CONTENTS.
| Chapter. | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I. | [Mr. Incoul,] | 11 |
| II. | [Miss Barhyte Agrees to Change her Name,] | 18 |
| III. | [After Darkness,] | 30 |
| IV. | [An Evening Call,] | 42 |
| V. | [A Yellow Envelope,] | 51 |
| VI. | [Biarritz,] | 68 |
| VII. | [What may be Seen from a Palco,] | 84 |
| VIII. | [An Unexpected Guest,] | 101 |
| IX. | [Mr. Incoul Dines in Spain,] | 114 |
| X. | [The Point of View,] | 127 |
| XI. | [The House in the Parc Monceau,] | 138 |
| XII. | [Mr. Incoul is Preoccupied,] | 146 |
| XIII. | [What may be Heard in a Greenroom,] | 155 |
| XIV. | [Karl Grows a Moustache,] | 163 |
| XV. | [May Expostulates,] | 178 |
| XVI. | [The Bare Bodkin,] | 188 |
| XVII. | [Maida’s Nuptials,] | 202 |
| XVIII. | [Mr. Incoul Goes over the Accounts,] | 211 |
[CHAPTER I.]
MR. INCOUL.
When Harmon Incoul’s wife died, the world in which he lived said that he would not marry again. The bereavement which he had suffered was known to be bitter, and it was reported that he might betake himself to some foreign land. There was, for that matter, nothing to keep him at home. He was childless, his tastes were too simple to make it necessary for him to reside as he had, hitherto, in New York, and, moreover, he was a man whose wealth was proverbial. Had he so chosen, he had little else to do than to purchase a ticket and journey wheresoever he listed, and the knowledge of this ability may have been to him not without its consolations. Yet, if he attempted to map some plan, and think which spot he would prefer, he probably reflected that whatever place he might choose, he would, in the end, be not unlike the invalid who turns over in his bed, and then turns back again on finding the second position no better than the first. However fair another sky might be, it would not make his sorrow less acute.
He was then one of those men whose age is difficult to determine. He had married when quite young, and at the time of his widowerhood he must have been nearly forty, but years had treated him kindly. His hair, it is true, was inclined to scantiness, and his skin was etiolated, but he was not stout, his teeth were sound, he held himself well, and his eyes had not lost their lustre. At a distance, one might have thought him in the thirties, but in conversation his speech was so measured, and about his lips there was a compression such that the ordinary observer fancied him older than he really was.
His position was unexceptionable. He had inherited a mile of real estate in a populous part of New York, together with an accumulation of securities sufficient for the pay and maintenance of a small army. The foundations of this wealth had been laid by an ancestor, materially increased by his grandfather, and consolidated by his father, who had married a Miss Van Tromp, the ultimate descendant of the Dutch admiral.