The Cords of Vanity

Next day, in Cedarwood, a woman in mourning -- in mourning fluffed and jetted and furbelowed in such pleasing fashion that it seemed flamboyantly to demand immediate consolation of all marriageable males -- viewed me with a roving eye as I heaped daffodils on Stella's grave. They had cost me a pretty penny, too, for this was in September. But then I must have daffodils, much as I loathe the wet, limp feel of them, because she would have chosen daffodils. Well! I fancied this woman thought me sanctioned by both church and law in what I did -- and viewed me in my supposedly recent bereavement and gauged my potentialities -- viewed me, in short, with the glance of adventurous widowhood.

My faith (I meditated) if she knew! -- if I could but speak my thought to her!