man would fail to a certainty."

Aline was amazed. "You misjudge him. I am sure you do. But if you think
this of him why--"

"Why do I marry him? I have asked myself that a hundred times, my dear.
I wish I knew. I have told you what I see in him to-day; but
tomorrow--why, to-morrow I shall see him an altogether different man.
He will be perhaps a radiating center of altruism, devoted to his
friends, a level-headed protector of the working classes, a patron of
the arts in his own clearminded, unlettered way. But whatever point of
view one gets at him, he spares one dullness. Will you explain to me,
my dear, why picturesque rascality is so much more likable than humdrum
virtue?"

Mrs. Harley's eyes blazed. "And you can talk this way of the man you
are going to marry, a man--" She broke off, her voice choked.

Miss Balfour was cool as a custard. "I can, my dear, and without the
least disloyalty. In point of fact, he asked me to tell you the kind of
man I think him. I'm trying to oblige him, you see."

"He asked you--to tell me this about him?" Aline pulled in her pony in
order to read with her astonished eyes the amused ones of her companion.

"Yes. He was afraid you were making too much of his saving you. He
thinks he won't do to set on a pedestal."

"Then I think all the more of him for his modesty."

"Don't invest too heavily on his modesty, my dear. He wouldn't be the
man he is if he owned much of that commodity."

"The man he is?"

"Yes, the man born to win, the man certain of himself no matter what
the odds against him. He knows he is a man of destiny; knows quite well
that there is something big about him that dwarfs other men. I know it,
too. Wherefore I seize my opportunity. It would be a sin to let a man
like that get away from one. I could never forgive myself," she
concluded airily.

"Don't you see any human, lovable things in him?" Aline's voice was an
accusation.

"He is the staunchest friend conceivable. No trouble is too great for
him to take for one he likes, and where once he gives his trust he does
not take it back. Oh, for all his force, he is intensely human! Take
his vanity, my dear. It soars to heaven."

"If I cared for him I couldn't dissect his qualities as you do."

"That's because you are a triumph of the survival of nature and impulse
over civilization, in spite of its attempts to sap your freshness. For
me, I fear I'm a sophisticated daughter of a critical generation. If I
we