it up. And there was some one
to accompany her in ramblings and flower gatherings. Also, she learned
to cast flies in still pools and below savage riffles, and how not to
entangle silk lines and gut-leaders with the shrubbery.

Jack Hemingway did not care to teach beginners, and fished much by
himself, or not at all, thus giving Ned Bashford ample time in which
to consider Loretta as an appearance. As such, she was all that his
philosophy demanded. Her blue eyes had the direct gaze of a boy, and
out of his profundity he delighted in them and forbore to shudder at the
duplicity his philosophy bade him to believe lurked in their depths. She
had the grace of a slender flower, the fragility of colour and line of
fine china, in all of which he pleasured greatly, without thought of the
Life Force palpitating beneath and in spite of Bernard Shaw--in whom he
believed.

Loretta burgeoned. She swiftly developed personality. She discovered
a will of her own and wishes of her own that were not everlastingly
entwined with the will and the wishes of Daisy. She was petted by Jack
Hemingway, spoiled by Alice Hemingway, and devotedly attended by Ned
Bashford. They encouraged her whims and laughed at her follies, while
she developed the pretty little tyrannies that are latent in all pretty
and delicate women. Her environment acted as a soporific upon her
ancient desire always to live with Daisy. This desire no longer prodded
her as in the days of her companionship with Billy. The more she saw of
Billy, the more certain she had been that she could not live away
from Daisy. The more she saw of Ned Bashford, the more she forgot her
pressing need of Daisy.

Ned Bashford likewise did some forgetting. He confused superficiality
with profundity, and entangled appearance with reality until he
accounted them one. Loretta was different from other women. There was no
masquerade about her. She was real. He said as much to Mrs. Hemingway,
and more, who agreed with him and at the same time caught her husband's
eyelid drooping down for the moment in an unmistakable wink.

It was at this time that Loretta received a letter from Billy that was
somewhat different from his others. In the main, like all his letters,
it was pathological. It was a long recital of symptoms and sufferings,
his nervousness, his sleeplessness, and the state of his heart. Then
followed reproaches, such as he had never made before. They were sharp
enough to make her weep, and