ay he no
longer insisted on my going with him. But he came to Ballard's
apartment and we had several talks in which, after one final and
fruitless effort to dissuade him from his fight, I gave up and we
talked of other things.

It was not necessary for me to tell Jerry that I had overheard his
interview with Una Habberton. And when he spoke of the incident, I
encouraged him to talk until I learned just how much--and how
little--the meeting meant to him. The impression, the rather unique
impression she had first made upon the clean, fair surface of his
mind, remained indelibly printed: the first female creature he had
seen and talked with, a youthful being, like himself, with whom he
could talk as he talked with me, without care or restraint,--a
creature of ideals, humor, and a fine feeling for human companionship
which she did not hesitate to share; a friend like Skookums or me, but
of an infinitely finer grain, with a gentler voice, a smoother skin
and softer eyes, better to look at; in short, more agreeable, more
surprising, more sympathetic, more appealing. This chance meeting, I
think, merely confirmed the previous impression, reasserting an early
conception of femininity with which the charms of Marcia Van Wyck
could have nothing in common. He must have compared them, but with
different standards of comparison, for each in Jerry's mind was _sui
generis_. The glamour of Marcia, her perfumes, her artistry, the lure
of her voice and eyes, her absorbing abstractions and sudden
enthusiasms--how could Una's quaint transitions compare with such as
these? And yet I am sure that he judged Una Habberton not unfavorably
in Marcia's reflected glamour, for he spoke of the character in her
hands (thinking of Marcia's rosy nails) and the radiancy of her smile
(thinking of Marcia's red lips). And whatever he may have thought of
her personal pulchritude or the quiet magnetism of her friendliness,
there was no room in his mind just now for the merely spiritual. If
Una had a place in his heart, it was where the ebb and flow were
quiet, not in the mid-stream of hot blood. But Jerry kept his word.
His check for Una's day nursery went forward on the day following
their meeting and Jerry found time in the intervals between Marcia,
business and the gymnasium to call upon Una and talk over in a general
way the great project in which their interest was involved. I heard
little of these few meetings, for after a short visit with Ballard,
d