ade everything easy. The newspapers have talked of
you only as they would anyway. Indeed, they would have given more
space to you if you had a liking for conducting an automobile painted
like a barber's pole than they have because you went into politics.
They would have preferred the striped automobile, but they had to be
content with the 'reform politics' as the freak of one in your place."

"Then you think I am--nothing?"

"You are a rich young man of assured position--spoiled by the world."

"I thought I had, at least, ordinary common sense."

"Probably--but still you have unduly lost your head. You would not
know if people were laughing at you----"

Leeds flushed slightly. Miriam caught her breath sharply, and reached
forward to take up a fan which lay within her reach.

"I am altogether a monster?"

"No," she replied, calmly. "A very ordinary young man, I should say."

"I'd be kind to dumb animals and not kick a baby----"

"I am quite serious," she answered. "You objected to any little
pleasantness on my part because what I said might not be altogether
sincere. Now we are going to have facts. Indeed, you are the type of
man I dislike."

"At least, we know where we are now," he responded.

"Yes. And as we are staying in the same house it may be as well."

Miriam rose slowly. She walked decidedly across the room, and
ostentatiously placed herself beside Mrs. Gunnison. Leeds, deserted,
did not move. He sat staring at the floor, as he softly drummed with
his fingers on the couch's leather arm.

As well as in certain other particulars, the life of a country house
is microcosmical in this--escape from the requirements of human
relationship is impossible. Indeed, the demands are made greater, the
bonds more firmly fixed. In fact, the condition of all may be more
fitly described as the condition of two united in matrimony--they take
each other for better or worse. Constantly through the day they must
meet. The terms on which they are thrown together impose intimacy. If
latent antipathy exists with the revealing conditions of constant
companionship it must be discovered. If inherent sympathy is to be
found the two gravitate toward each other with inevitable certainty.
As the birthplace of aversion quickly reaching a maturity of
detestation and hate; as the hothouse of interest growing speedily
into full bloom of liking and love, there is no place like a country
house. All existence there, in its condensed for