xplained the girl,
flaming red. "I should think that if he--oh, but I am glad he does not
speak!" she interrupted herself, vehemently, remembering her brother's
peril. "He must not speak!"

"Don't allow any false pride to come between you," urged the doctor.
"Nothing kills a man's love so quickly as indifference, real or
feigned."

"Do you think so?" She was glad to be impersonal again. "I imagined a
little indifference piqued a man to further effort."

"The heat of propinquity feeds the flame of love," oracularly.

"I do not agree with you there, Doctor. I think men grow tired of
women's solicitude and company."

"Of their wives?"

Winifred nodded.

"Precious few have the experience! But I agree with you that most
married people see too much of each other. Men seem to realize the fact.
That is why they go on hunting and fishing trips. Do they hunt? A few of
the party, but the rest sit around and enjoy themselves, because they
are a party of _men_. Women will never understand this feeling--this
insulation, so to speak; it is the cause of much of the unhappiness we
see. Most men fall short of the standard a woman demands from her
husband. The first rapturous love, with its utterance and reciprocity,
is expected to last after years of intimacy. In love, as in a dinner,
comes the gradual relaxation, the ease of well-being, which is the
greatest compliment (if she but knew it) to a woman's power to evoke and
to hold love. She has not lost it; to reiterate what is a self-evident
fact seems to the man unnecessary. A happy married life is one of
content, comradeship, loyalty. Words are not needed where such
conditions exist."

"I'll remember all you have said," sighed the girl, "but I shall never
have an opportunity to prove it!"

"Nonsense, girl!" The comforter rose as he heard Charlie's voice in the
outer hall. "You are depressed to-night. Life will look brighter
to-morrow. These tangled trails are going to be straightened--I'm sure
of it! Love will crystallize that Chinese legend into reality--for you
and for Phil. Good-night! Good-night!"

[Illustration]

Chapter XII

Recognition

For years Danvers had shunned women. Yet he had not spent his life in
melancholy over Eva's defection; known to many, but understood by few,
his real nature withdrew from the light. His intuitive attitude toward
strangers of either sex was a negative indifference that gave him time
to estimate their character or their m