  SO Annabel was engaged. And then, almost before they knew it, Annabel was married, and her place was removed from the dining-table, and the circle about the table closed in a little, and Eleanor looked at it with regretful eyes. But the young people were not far off. And two extra plates had often to be laid for dinner or luncheon, or even for breakfast; so that the whole number of plates for the year was perhaps not much reduced. William Archer was paying attention to his neckties and socks, and growing fussy about the cut of his hair. And the younger children were coming up with demands for a sensible education that the school system of the country did not supply. And Richard and Eleanor More still found life a rich and satisfying adventure. Richard sometimes wondered as he watched her face and the little new wrinkles coming to it—what life would have been if he had married some one else—some one besides Eleanor—the Rumley, girl, for instance.... He was almost engaged to the Rumley girl, at one time, he remembered.... He had blundered along—and heaven knows, he might have married the Rumley girl!... The thought always gave him a little fleeting shiver down his back. And then a sense of strength and well-being swept over him—of the inevitableness of life. It could not have been any other way—or any one but Eleanor!... She had said that Annabel’s engagement was “decided in heaven.”... That was it! People might laugh—and, of course, it was a kind of fatalism—but things like that had to be.... The sun had to rise in the East to-morrow morning—that was not fatalism! There was one regret that followed him—though he never mentioned it, and he seldom thought of it, consciously.... Sometimes a look in Eleanor’s face would bring it back—and he would wonder why he should mind so much—that he had not been able to get the coat for her—the Chinese coat they had seen at Stewart’s that day.... It was not such a wonderful garment, after all—was it?... He had given her more expensive things than that—more beautiful things—had he?... And then he would see her face as she stood for a moment wrapped in its folds and looking down. The day Annabel mentioned the coat she had seen at the tea he had been deeply startled. And he wanted to speak to Eleanor about it afterward. But something held him. Perhaps she had forgotten... perhaps she did not care—so much as he fancied. Once, when they were going to the opera, he turned in the limousine and caught a flitting smile on her lips as they flashed by a light and he asked her what she was thinking about. She laughed out. “The Chinese coat, dear.... I could have worn it to-night.” He could not have told whether there were tears in her voice. He only thought as she stepped from the car and walked beside him into the lobby that he had never seen her so beautiful; and he had had the happy sense of people turning their heads to look at her—stare a little.... There was a kind of radiance about Eleanor sometimes.... He had given her everything in the world—except the Chinese coat. And the little regret never left him. Later it came to him that Stewart might, after all, have got the coat for him—and simply be waiting for him to call.
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