een consummated, like certain processes of nature, far
from the gaze of man. She had found the world deranged from every
girlish ideal. Full grown young men could be so beautiful to her
artist's eyes, that years were required to realize that these splendid
exteriors held more often than not, little more than strutting
half-truths and athletic vanities.

Whistler, the master, had entered the class-room unannounced, where
Beth was studying, as a girl in Paris. Glancing about the walls, his
eyes fastened upon a sketch of hers. He asked the teacher for the pupil
who did it, and uplifted Beth's face to his, touching her chin and
forehead lightly.

Then he whistled and said: "Off hand, I should say that you are to
become an artist; but now that I look closely into your face, I am
afraid you will become a woman."

Tentatively, she was an artist; she would not grant more.... A little
while before, she had been very close to becoming a woman. None but the
Shadowy Sister knew how near. (The Shadowy Sister was an institution of
Beth's--her conscience, her spirit, her higher self, or all three in
one. She came from an old fairy-book. A little girl had longed for a
playmate, even as Beth, and one day beside a fountain appeared a
Shadowy Sister. She could stay a while, for she loved the little girl,
but confessed it was much happier where _she_ lived.)... Shadowy
Sisters for little girls who have no playmates, and for women who have
no confidantes.

Under Beth's mirth, during the recent talk with David Cairns, had been
much of verity. She was carrying an unhealed wound, which neither he
nor the world understood. In Andrew Bedient she had discerned a fine
and deeply-endowed nature--glimpses--as if he were some great woman's
gift to the world, her soul and all. But Beth's romantic nature had
been desolated so short a time ago, that she despised even her
willingness to put forth faith again.... Such fruit must perish on the
vine, if only common hands attend the harvest.

Women like Beth Truba learn in bitterness to protect themselves from
possibilities of disillusionment. They hate their hardness, yet
hardness is better than rebuilding sanctuaries that have been brutally
stormed. For one must build of faith, radium-rare to those who have
lost their intrinsic supply.

The Other Man had been a find of Beth's. He had come to her mother's
house years ago--a boy. He had seemed quick to learn the ways of real
people, and the things a