“No!” Erard refused. “The air is really too fine.”
Mrs. Wilbur turned to mount the white steps, then lingered. She looked at Erard, her mind passing over his shambling figure and lustreless features on to the sweet garden of delights with which somehow she had, strangely enough, identified him. A rush of feeling, of longing unutterable for the beautiful, for the dream, surged through her heart. Oh! for one moment of escape from these endless avenues, from this flaunting city, from Wrightington and money, and, yes, her husband! To hold once more the holy peace of beauty and with it to still her rebellious heart.
Erard seemed to wait for something.
“You will call?” she asked at length.
He looked annoyed; he had expected a more significant result from their talk.
“Yes, I think so, very soon. In a fortnight I shall be shaking the dust—”
“I must see you again. It is all such a tangle!”
As Erard turned down the boulevard, he met Wilbur, and raised his hat, rather vacantly.
CHAPTER IX
Among the men who had been watching the procession from the comfortable armchairs of the Metropolis Club was John Wilbur. He had recently been received as a member,—an event deeply gratifying to him. In his “hustling years,” as he called the period before the opening of the new house, he had not thought much about clubs. But success translated itself this way. He had become much more zealous for all possible social distinctions than his wife, for she had always lived abreast of the society where she had been placed.