ife is relatively rare.

To Roger, indeed, after his climax in the four-wheeler, it seemed
impossible that life could ever again be quiet. If I have not
impressed you with the idea that he was a decent sort of man, I have
wasted a whole chapter and demonstrated the folly of attempting
authorship at my age, and you will be but poorly prepared to learn
that when the cabby knocked at the glass, after heaven knows how many
minutes of interested observation, Roger discovered his identity
again--and loathed it. His conduct appeared to him indescribably
beneath contempt, his situation deplorable. Margarita, sobbing quietly
in her corner, seemed unlikely to raise either his spirits or his
estimate of himself.

Opening the door of the carriage he repeated his directions to the
too-confidential driver and spoke stiffly to his companion.

"I will not attempt to excuse myself to you," he said, "for it would
be pointless. If you can believe me, I will try my best to help you to
your friends. Can you not tell me the name of one?"

"What is your name?" she asked, her voice only a little shaken from
her sobs, which had ceased as soon as he began to speak.

"My name is Roger Bradley," he answered promptly.

"Then that is the name of my first friend," said Margarita Josephine
Dolores, "but I hope to find others."

Roger's revulsion of feeling was so great, his state of mind so
perturbed and confounded that he crushed them into a short, husky
laugh. Had he been the hero of a novel he would undoubtedly have
launched into a bitter speech, but he did not.

"Others like me?" he said briefly, and all the bitterness of the
novel-hero was there if Margarita had been able to read it. But she
only smiled, a little uncertainly, it is true, and replied:

"Yes, I should like them like you--only not so strong," she added
softly, with a shy glance at her wrists.

It has been quite unnecessary for me to consult letters or diaries to
give me a very clear insight into Roger's feelings at this point, for
I myself have experienced them. It was when I took Margarita out in a
rowboat and she began to rock herself in it.

"Don't do that, Margarita!" I cried. "That is an idiotic trick."

She continued to rock it.

"Do you hear me, Margarita?" I demanded, tapping her foot with some
irritation, for she really was irritating. In fact she completely
upset the theory that tact and adaptability constitute her sex's chief
charm.

"Of course I hear yo