ning, helpless fear in her heart.

CHAPTER VIII. JIM'S TRIAL

The quarrel had left Mary in a quiver of exalted rage. How dare a friend
trample her most sacred feelings! She pitied Jane Anderson and her
tribe--these modern feminine leaders of a senseless revolution against
man--they were crazy. They had all been disappointed in some individual
and for that reason set themselves up as the judges of mankind.

"Thank God my soul has not been poisoned!" she exclaimed aloud with
fervor. "How strange that these women who claim such clear vision can be
so stupidly blind!"

She busied herself with her little household, and made up her mind once
and for all time to be done with such friendships. The friendship of
such women was a vain thing. They were vicious cats at heart--not like
her gentle Persian kitten whose soul was full of sleepy sunlight. These
modern insurgents were wild, half-starved stray cats that had been
hounded and beaten until they had lapsed into their elemental brute
instincts. They were so aggravating, too, they deserved no sympathy.

Again she thanked God that she was not one of them--that her heart was
still capable of romantic love--a love so sudden and so overwhelming
that it could sweep life before it in one mad rush to its glorious end.

She woke next morning with a dull sense of depression. The room was damp
and chilly. It was storming. The splash of rain against the window and
the muffled roar from the street below meant that the wind was high and
the day would be a wretched one outside.

They couldn't take their ride.

It was a double disappointment. She had meant to have him dash down to
Long Beach and place the ring on her finger seated on that same bright
sand-dune overlooking the sea. Instead, they must stay indoors. Jim was
not at his best indoors. She loved him behind the wheel with his hand
on the pulse of that racer. The machine seemed a part of his being. He
breathed his spirit into its steel heart, and together they swept her on
and on over billowy clouds through the gates of Heaven.

There was no help for it. They would spend the time together in her room
planning the future. It would be sweet--these intimate hours in her home
with the man she loved.

Should she spend a whole day alone there with him? Was it just proper?
Was it really safe? Nonsense! The vile thoughts which Jane had uttered
had poisoned her, after all. She hated her self that she could remember
them. And ye