Hayden drew a long breath of happiness as Marcia's steps fell in with his; the sense of contentment and well‑being which her mere presence always afforded him seemed the more soothing and potent this afternoon than ever before. Since yesterday, there had run high in his veins the fever of acquisition, and Ydo's personality had disturbed and stimulated until she had wrought in him a sort of mental confusion. But Marcia at his side, smiling in the shadow of her plumed hat, the familiar violets nestling in her dark furs, seemed the visible embodiment of all these soft, sweet intimations of spring. Not yet jocund, as spring come into her own crowned with flowers and laughing through her silver rain; but a wistful spring still held in the thraldom of winter.
"What have you been doing that makes you look a little pale?" asked Hayden tenderly.
"Am I pale?" She smiled at him. "I dare say. I have been painting the greater part of every day and going out a good deal in the evening."
"What an idler I must seem to you who are always so occupied," he said.
"Not at all. I, too, take vacations. But tell me how you have been idling lately."
"I idled, if you call it that," he said, "yesterday afternoon at the wonderful fortune‑teller's."
"Oh, you have seen Ydo?" Marcia lifted her head involuntarily, and then meeting his surprised gaze, the color flooded her cheeks. It kept on rolling up in waves.
Seeing her embarrassment, he was at pains to suppress his astonishment.
"Yes," he said as naturally as he possibly could under the circumstances. "Yes, she gave me quite a long reading. Isn't that the professional word for it—reading?"
"I—I believe so." She had not entirely recovered herself. "And are you quite convinced of her powers?"