She slipped out.
And all the guests were gone.
There was no one in the room save David and this Helen he did not know. She stood there, straight and small in the center of the room. She looked at him.
He came to her. Everything he did was slow. He had a sense of an eternity in which he was about to step. The passions of his life seemed shivered fragments beside the steadfast vastness of this moment.
She was near him now. He had her warm pervasion all about him. He put his arms around her waist. Her arms were stiff at her side. As she leaned faintly back from the pressure of his hands, her face turned upward. So he drew her in, until her mouth was his....
Cornelia was home. Straight she went into her little bedroom and lit the gas. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was pale, but a dim flush flowered her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and deep with a dry passion. She looked at herself; aloud she said:
“This is I. This is Cornelia Rennard.” Her voice ceased, she went on speaking. “I am beautiful. For one time, I am beautiful. If he could see me now——” It was so. It was a pity he could not see her now.
She turned away, she took off her dress. Carefully she smoothed out its folds: she placed it away. She had a housegown of warm quilted silk-brocade—it was brown. She put it on. She fastened it tight about her and made the belt sure about her waist with a knot.
She went to her desk and sat down.
She took a calendar date-book and laid it before her. There was an engagement inscribed for the following Sunday. The rest of the days were blank. She began to write.