a
matter of course."

She gazed away dreamily. And he understood that her indifference to
matters of rank and wealth and power was not wholly vanity but was, in
part at least, due to a feeling that love was the only essential. Nor
did he wonder how she was reconciling this belief of high and pure
sentiment with what she was doing in marrying him. He knew that human
beings are not consistent, cannot be so in a universe that compels them
to face directly opposite conditions often in the same moment. But just
as all lines are parallel in infinity, so all actions are profoundly
consistent when referred to the infinitely broad standard of the
necessity that every living thing shall look primarily to its own well
being. Disobedience to this fundamental carries with it inevitable
punishment of disintegration and death; and those catastrophes are
serious matters when one has but the single chance at life, that will be
repeated never again in all the eternities.

After their late lunch or early dinner, they drove to her lodgings. He
went up with her and helped her to pack--not a long process, as she had
few belongings. He noted that the stockings and underclothes she took
from the bureau drawers were in anything but good condition, that the
half dozen dresses she took from the closet and folded on the couch were
about done for. Presently she said, cheerfully and with no trace of
false shame:

"You see, I'm pretty nearly in rags."

"Oh, that's soon arranged," replied he. "Why bother to take these
things? Why not give them to the maid?"

She debated with herself. "I think you're right," she decided. "Yes,
I'll give them to Jennie."

"The underclothes, too," he urged. "And the hats."

It ended in her having left barely enough loosely to fill the bottom of
a small trunk with two trays.

They drove to the Knickerbocker Hotel, and he took a small suite, one of
the smallest and least luxurious in the house, for with all his desire
to make her feel the contrast of her change of circumstances sharply, he
could not forget how limited his income was, and how unwise it would be
to have to move in a few days to humbler quarters. He hoped that the
rooms, englamoured by the hotel's general air of costly luxury, would
sufficiently impress her. And while she gave no strong indication but
accepted everything in her wonted quiet, passive manner, he was shrewd
enough to see that she was content. "To-morrow," he said to himself,
"after sh