ow to advantage herself of it. In
the smaller cities and towns of the West, this awe of respectable
womanhood exists in a degree difficult for the sophisticated to believe
possible, unless they have had experience of it. Dory had never had that
familiarity with women which breeds knowledge of their absolute and
unmysterious humanness. Thus, not only did he not have the key which
enables its possessor to unlock them; he did not even know how to use it
when Del offered it to him, all but thrust it into his hand. Poor Dory,
indeed--but let only those who have not loved too well to love wisely
strut at his expense by pitying him; for, in matters of the heart,
sophisticated and unsophisticated act much alike. "Men would dare much
more, if they knew what women think," says George Sand. It is also true
that the men who dare most, who win most, are those who do not stop to
bother about what the women think. Thought does not yet govern the world,
but appetite and action--bold appetite and the courage of it.

CHAPTER XIX

MADELENE

To give himself, journeyman cooper, the feeling of ease and equality,
Arthur dressed, with long-discontinued attention to detail, from his
extensive wardrobe which the eighteen months since its last accessions
had not impaired or antiquated. And, in the twilight of an early
September evening, he went forth to settle the matter that had become the
most momentous.

There is in dress a something independent of material and cut and even of
the individuality of the wearer; there is a spirit of caste. If the lady
dons her maid's dress, some subtle essence of the menial permeates her,
even to her blood, her mind, and heart. The maid, in madame's dress,
putting on "airs," is merely giving an outlet to that which has entered
into her from her clothes. Thus, Arthur assumed again with his "_grande
toilette_" the feeling of the caste from which he had been ejected.
Madelene, come herself to open the door for him, was in a summer dress of
no pretentions to style other than that which her figure, with its large,
free, splendid lines, gave whatever she happened to wear. His nerves, his
blood, responded to her beauty, as always; her hair, her features, the
grace of the movements of that strong, slender, supple form, gave him the
sense of her kinship with freedom and force and fire and all things keen
and bright. But stealthily and subtly it came to him, in this mood
superinduced by his raiment, that in mar