“There!” he said soothingly, “you’ll feel differently in the morning.  We’ll go and look at it, anyway.”

Her quick ear, however, detected an undertone which, if not precisely resentment, was akin to the vexation that an elderly gentleman might be justified in feeling who has taken the same walk for twenty years, and is one day struck by a falling brick.  Howard had not thought of consulting her in regard to remaining all winter in Quicksands.  And, although he might not realize it himself, if he should consent to go to New York one reason for his acquiescence would be that the country in winter offered a more or less favourable atmosphere for the recurrence of similar unpleasant and unaccountable domestic convulsions.  Business demands peace at any price.  And the ultimatum at Rivington, though delivered in so different a manner, recurred to him.

The morning sunlight, as is well known, is a dispeller of moods, a disintegrator of the night’s fantasies.  It awoke Honora at what for her was a comparatively early hour, and as she dressed rapidly she heard her husband whistling in his room.  It is idle to speculate on the phenomenon taking place within her, and it may merely be remarked in passing that she possessed a quality which, in a man, leads to a career and fame.  Unimagined numbers of America’s women possess that quality—­a fact that is becoming more and more apparent every day.

“Why, Honora!” Howard exclaimed, as she appeared at the breakfast table.  “What’s happened to you?”

“Have you forgotten already,” she asked, smilingly, as she poured out her coffee, “that we are going to town together?”

He readjusted his newspaper against the carafe.

“How much do you think Mrs. Farnham—­or Mrs. Rindge—­is worth?” he asked.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” she replied.

“Old Marshall left her five million dollars.”

“What has that to do with it?” inquired Honora.

“She isn’t going to rent, especially in that part of town, for nothing.”

“Wouldn’t it be wiser, Howard, to wait and see the house.  You know you proposed it yourself, and it won’t take very much of your time.”

He returned to a perusal of the financial column, but his eye from time to time wandered from the sheet to his wife, who was reading her letters.

“Howard,” she said, “I feel dreadfully about Mrs. Holt.  We haven’t been at Silverdale all summer.  Here’s a note from her saying she’ll be in town to-morrow for the Charities Conference, asking me to come to see her at her hotel.  I think I’ll go to Silverdale a little later.”

“Why don’t you?” he said.  “It would do you good.”

“And you?” she asked.

“My only day of the week is Sunday, Honora.  You know that.  And I wouldn’t spend another day at Silverdale if they gave me a deed to the property,” he declared.

On the train, when Howard had returned from the smoking car and they were about to disembark at Long Island City, they encountered Mr. Trixton Brent.