the fire quietly, and without
a trace of self-consciousness. The hostility which she had divined in
Mary's tone had completely disappeared, and she forgot that she had been
upon the point of going.

"Well, I suppose I have," she said at length. "And yet I sometimes
think--" She paused; she did not know how to express what she meant.

"It came over me in the Tube the other day," she resumed, with a smile;
"what is it that makes these people go one way rather than the other?
It's not love; it's not reason; I think it must be some idea. Perhaps,
Mary, our affections are the shadow of an idea. Perhaps there isn't any
such thing as affection in itself...." She spoke half-mockingly, asking
her question, which she scarcely troubled to frame, not of Mary, or of
any one in particular.

But the words seemed to Mary Datchet shallow, supercilious,
cold-blooded, and cynical all in one. All her natural instincts were
roused in revolt against them.

"I'm the opposite way of thinking, you see," she said.

"Yes; I know you are," Katharine replied, looking at her as if now she
were about, perhaps, to explain something very important.

Mary could not help feeling the simplicity and good faith that lay
behind Katharine's words.

"I think affection is the only reality," she said.

"Yes," said Katharine, almost sadly. She understood that Mary was
thinking of Ralph, and she felt it impossible to press her to reveal
more of this exalted condition; she could only respect the fact that,
in some few cases, life arranged itself thus satisfactorily and pass on.
She rose to her feet accordingly. But Mary exclaimed, with unmistakable
earnestness, that she must not go; that they met so seldom; that
she wanted to talk to her so much.... Katharine was surprised at the
earnestness with which she spoke. It seemed to her that there could be
no indiscretion in mentioning Ralph by name.

Seating herself "for ten minutes," she said: "By the way, Mr. Denham
told me he was going to give up the Bar and live in the country. Has he
gone? He was beginning to tell me about it, when we were interrupted."

"He thinks of it," said Mary briefly. The color at once came to her
face.

"It would be a very good plan," said Katharine in her decided way.

"You think so?"

"Yes, because he would do something worth while; he would write a book.
My father always says that he's the most remarkable of the young men who
write for him."

Mary bent low over the fire