and her voice also did not sound quite natural.  However, he dismissed the idea at once as mere fancy, and watched proudly the admiring glances bestowed upon her in the Fairbridge station, while they were waiting for the train.  Margaret had a peculiar knack in designing costumes which were at once plain and striking.  This morning she wore a black China silk, through the thin bodice of which was visible an under silk strewn with gold disks.  Her girdle was clasped with a gold buckle, and when she moved there were slight glimpses of a yellow silk petticoat.  Her hat was black, but under the brim was tucked a yellow rose against her yellow hair.  Then to finish all, Margaret wore in the lace at her throat, a great brooch of turquoise matrix, which matched her eyes.  Her husband realised her as perfectly attired, although he did not in the least understand why.  He knew that his Margaret looked a woman of another race from the others in the station, in their tailored skirts, and shirtwaists, with their coats over arm, and their shopping bags firmly clutched.  It was a warm morning, and feminine Fairbridge’s idea of a suitable costume for a New York shopping trip was a tailored suit, and a shirtwaist, and as a rule, the shirtwaist did not fit.  Margaret never wore shirtwaists,—­she understood that she was too short unless she combined a white skirt with a waist.  Margaret would have broken a commandment with less hesitation than she would have broken the line of her graceful little figure with two violently contrasting colours.  Mrs. Sturtevant in a grey skirt and an elaborate white waist, which emphasised her large bust, looked ridiculous beside this fair, elegant little Margaret, although her clothes had in reality cost more.  Wilbur watched his wife as she talked sweetly with the other woman, and his heart swelled with the pride of possession.  When they were on the train and he sat by himself in the smoker, having left Margaret with Mrs. Sturtevant, his heart continued to feel warm with elation.  He waited to assist his wife off the train at Jersey City and realised it a trial that he could not cross the river on the same ferry.  Margaret despised the tube and he wished for the short breath of sea air which he would get on the Courtland ferry.  He glanced after her retreating black skirts with the glimpses of yellow, regretfully, before he turned his back and turned toward his own slip.  And he glanced the more regretfully because this morning, with all his admiration of his wife, he had a dim sense of something puzzling which arose like a cloud of mystery between them.