A Fountain Sealed

In a small drawing-room, whose windows looked out upon a wintry Boston street, three people were sitting. It was a room rather empty and undecorated, but its intense warmth seemed in some degree to furnish it; one couldn't associate austerity with such an almost tropical temperature. The girl who sat near the window, her furs thrown back from her shoulders, a huge muff dangling from her hand, was a few years younger and exceedingly pretty. Her skin was unusually white, her hair unusually black, her velvety eyes unusually large and dark. In. her attitude, lounging, graceful, indifferent, in her delicate face, the straight, sulky brows, the coldly closed lips, the coldly observant eyes, a sort of permanent discontent was expressed, as though she could find, neither in herself nor in the world, any adequate satisfaction. This was Rose Packer. The other guest, sitting sidewise on a stiff chair, his hand hanging over the back, his long legs crossed, was a young man, graceful, lean and shabby.   .