[Illustration: MACDOUGAL ALLEY.]
It may be further remarked that, if you should go upstairs to
Eleanore's studio, you would find that she takes the presence on the
couch as calmly as though it were a bundle of laundry. She is in no
sense disconcerted by the occasional snore that wakes the midnight
echoes. She works peacefully on at the black-and-white poster which
she is going to submit tomorrow. She does not resent Dickey at all.
Neither does she watch his slumbers tenderly nor hover over him in the
approved manner. Eleanore is not the least bit sentimental,--few
Villagers are. They are merely romantic and kindly, which are
different and sturdier graces.
Toward morning Dickey will wake and Eleanore will make him black
coffee and send him home. And there will be the end of that.
Conceive such a situation on the outside! Imagine the feminine
flutter of the conventional Julia. Fancy, above all, the hungry gossip
of conventional Julia's conventional friends! But in the Village there
is very little scandal, and practically no slander.
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