rtively toward the doorway where the young
men stood. The girl had a kind of flimsy prettiness which suggested a
cotillon favor. Her hair was fluffy, and coquettishly knotted at the
back with blue ribbon. Her freshly ironed white dress set off her
hourglass figure, and the fingers on which she was continually
twisting the rings were white and slender. Her lips were set in a
somewhat simpering smile, and her voice was soft with a view to
effect. Brady watched her artless artfulness with some amusement. When
they had gone out, he hinted something to Flint in regard to the
conquest he appeared to have made; but found him so loftily
unconscious that his jest fell flat, and he dropped the subject to
take up a more serious theme as they strolled along the road, and at
length seated themselves where the turkeys had made their roost, on
the gray rail-fence in the moonlight.

"I wonder, Flint," said Brady, "if we shall be able to take up our old
association where we dropped it."

"Of course not," Flint answered, "don't imagine it for a moment!"

"I don't see why we should not."

"You don't?"

"No, I do not."

"Well, that fact alone is enough to show the gap between us. I can see
it plainly enough. You have spent these last ten years in active,
quick decisions, accumulating energy, push, drive--what you call
hustling; while I have been trying to see into things a little, trying
to find out what is worth hustling for--whether anything is. Now do
you suppose that two people with such opposite training are going to
fit together like a cup and ball, as they used to do when they were
chums in college, and had had no training at all?"

"I don't know," said Brady, more dubiously. Then he went on, with the
air of one who is not to be balked in speaking his mind, "I am not
quite sure that I think your training has improved you."

"Very likely not," said Flint, imperturbably puffing away at his pipe.

"I suppose," continued Brady, "that it is very cultivating, and
philosophical, and up-to-date to lie back like that, and let your soul
expand, to wonder whether anything is worth while, and smile at the
struggle of the dull people around you who are foolish enough to
believe that something is worth while; but I'll be hanged if I like
it. I would rather be the lowest of the warm-blooded animals than the
highest of the cold-blooded. I beg your pardon," he added a little
lamely, "I did not mean to put it quite so strong as that."

"