cayune to any one what
became of him. What had he ever done to make his life worth while to
any one? He had never done any particular harm, that was true; but
neither had he done any particular good. It is the positive things
that count, when a man stands before the judgment-seat; and that is
where Monte stood on the night Marjory came back from Cannes by the
side of Peter, with her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed as if she
had come straight from Eden.

They all dined together, and Monte grubbed hungrily for every look she
vouchsafed him, for every word she tossed him. She had been more than
ordinarily vivacious, spurred on partly by Beatrice and partly by
Peter. Monte had felt himself merely an onlooker. That, in fact, was
all he was. That was all he had been his whole life.

He dodged Peter this evening to escape their usual after-dinner talk,
and went to his room. He was there now, with his face white and tense.

He had been densely stupid from the first, as Beatrice had informed
him. Any man of the world ought to have suspected something when, at
the first sight of Peter, she ran away. She had never run from him.
Women run only when there is danger of capture, and she had nothing to
fear from him in that way. She was safe with him. She dared even come
with him to escape those from whom there might be some possible danger.
Until now he had been rather proud of this--as if it were some honor.
She had trusted him as she would not trust other men. It had made him
throw back his shoulders--dense fool that he was!

She had trusted him because she did not fear him; she did not fear him
because there was nothing in him to fear. It was not that he was more
decent than other men: it was merely because he was less of a man.
Why, she had run even from Peter--good, honest, conscientious Peter,
with the heart and the soul and the nerve of a man. Peter had sent her
scurrying before him because of the great love he dared to have for
her. Peter challenged her to take up life with him--to buck New York
with him. This was after he had waded in himself with naked fists,
man-fashion. That was what gave Peter his right. That right was what
she feared.

Monte had a grandfather who in forty-nine crossed the plains. A
picture of him hung in the Covington house in Philadelphia. The
painting revealed steel-gray eyes and, even below the beard of
respectability, a mouth that in many ways was like Peter's. Montag