“Do you think so?” she asked, with a shaking voice. “But men—men are ideal, too.”
“Not as women are—except now and then some fool like Alford.” Now, indeed, he laughed, and he began to praise Alford from his heart, so delicately, so tenderly, so reverently, that Mrs. Yarrow laughed too before he was done, and cried a little, and when she rose to leave she could not speak; but clung to his hand, on turning away, and so flung it from behind her with a gesture that Enderby thought pretty.
At this point, Wanhope stopped as if that were the end.
“And did she let Alford come to see her again?” Rulledge, at once romantic and literal, demanded.
“Oh yes. At any rate, they were married that fall. They are—I believe he’s pursuing his archaeological studies there—living in Athens.”
“Together?” Minver smoothly inquired.
At this expression of cynicism Rulledge gave him a look that would have incinerated another. Wanhope went out with Minver, and then, after a moment’s daze, Rulledge exclaimed: “Jove! I forgot to ask him whether it’s stopped Alford’s illusions!”
[III]
A Memory that Worked Overtime
Minver’s brother took down from the top of the low bookshelf a small painting on panel, which he first studied in the obverse, and then turned and contemplated on the back with the same dreamy smile. “I don’t see how that got here,” he said, absently.