the vines of my own planting?
Would I flee from that to every corner of the world? Not if it held
the woman of my choice. Would she thus roam restless, if she held the
heart of her chosen and if they had a home?... I began to see the Plan
unfold. Yes, and saw myself outside the Plan.... Because of a devotion
to the right that would not swerve. Because of a fanaticism, an
"oddness", a nonconformity--ah! so I said bitterly to myself, because,
after all, I was unattuned to my age, because I was unfit to survive
before a man's own judge.... It is Portia judges this world. The case
of every man comes before a woman for decision. I, who rarely had lost
a case at law where I could use my own trained mind, had lost my first
and only case at the bar of Love....

So--and I sighed as I shut the books and returned them to their
shelves--contentment never could be mine, nor that quiet home where
only life is lived that is worth living; nor usefulness; nor
independence.

I did not hear Jimmy when he came in, and when he spoke I jumped,
startled.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

IN WHICH IS AN ARMISTICE WITH FATE

"Black Bart!" said Jimmy. "Say, now----"

"Well, good mate," said I, and laid a hand on his curly fair head,
"what shall I say?"

"Say nothin'," he remarked, dropping his voice. "Listen!"

"Yes?"

"We have held a council."

"Who has?"

"Why, me and Jean Lafitte and the heartless jade. I told her you sent
us to her to bid her seek your presence."

"Jimmy! What on earth do you mean! That's precisely the last thing I
would have done--I haven't done it. On the contrary----"

"I told her," he resumed calmly, "that when Black Bart, the pirut,
spoke, he spoke to be obeyed. She said, 'I can't go,' and I said, 'You
_gotta_ go.'"

"You, yourself, may now go and tell her that there has been a very bad
mistake, Jimmy; and that she need not come."

"An' make her cry worse? I ain't goin' to do it!"

"Sir! This is mutiny!--But did she cry, Jimmy?"

"Yes. Awful. She said she was homesick. She ain't. I don't know what
really is the matter. I ast Jean Lafitte, an' he said maybe you'd
know. We thought maybe it was something about yon varlet. Do you
know?"

"No, I do not, Jimmy." I found myself engaged in one of those
detestable conversations where one knows the talk ought to end, yet
dislikes to end it.

Jimmy stood for some time, much perturbed, looking every way but at
me, and at last he blurted out.

"Don't you just