y, before other envious men; took her often upon his knee when
any were about; pulled the pins out of her hair to reveal the full
flowing splendor of it; hung her with jewels, sent away for velvets and
silks and laces, so that she went about the rough place clad like a
young queen at court. But despite various episodes in his career,
Kildare was never a woman's man. He had married for one reason, and one
alone. He made no concealment of it. "People say we Kildares are doomed,
that the stock is dying out. We'll show 'em!" he often said. "Meanwhile,
let the girl have her fling."

Nevertheless, there was watchfulness. No matter how far she went, no
matter to what lengths her reckless gaiety led her, Kate was aware of
the quiet, understanding scrutiny of Jacques Benoix. Their nearest
neighbor, and by the strange attraction of opposites, Kildare's chosen
intimate, it was inevitable that she should be thrown constantly into
the company of the Creole. Despite his very evident admiration, he did
not join the ranks of her more or less avowed lovers; a fact that in
turn piqued and oddly comforted Kate. For at times this new life of hers
seemed a strange dream, in which Benoix, with his gentleness, his
punctilious courtesy, his rather formal friendliness of aspect, was the
only fixed reality. She felt, vaguely, that she was safe with him; safer
than with her husband. She thought of him more as a friend than as a
man.

He reminded her somewhat of her father and his companions, courtly,
scholarly gentlemen who belonged to that period of the South when men
not only gambled and rode and drank, but found leisure to cultivate
poetry, and Greek, and music, all the fine things of life. He talked to
her about such matters as had interested them, large impersonal matters,
taking for granted her intelligent understanding. This flattered the
girl, though she had no ambition to be thought a scholar.

Often he borrowed books from her small store, to the impatient amusement
of Basil Kildare, who looked upon the reading of books as a pastime
suitable for invalids and old women. Kate, too, found no room in her
exciting, absorbing life for books, at that time. Still, there was an
atmosphere about the Creole far less foreign to her than to her
companions. It reminded her of a sheltered, exquisite, finely ordered
childhood, of certain standards that she might otherwise have been in
danger of forgetting. She never joined a group of her husband's boo