more nearly Peavey than was strictly
her right; for it was plain that our treaty, must involve certain
stipulations of restraint on her part as well as on my own. The burden
was not all to be mine. But these moments I learned to withstand,
remembering that she was a woman. That was a circumstance not hard to
remember when she was by. It is probable that my heart could not have
forgotten it, even had my trained head learned blandly to ignore it.

Further to enliven those days, I permitted Jim to give her lessons in
believing everything. When I told her of this, she said, "I need them,
I'm so out of practice." That was the nearest we had come to touching
upon the interview of a certain afternoon. I should not have considered
this a forbidden topic, but her shyness became pitiful at any seeming
approach to it. "Jim will put you right again," I assured her. And I
believe he did, though it was not easy to persuade him that she could be
morally recognized when I was by. The occasion on which he first
remained crouching at her feet while I walked away was regarded by Miss
Kate as a personal triumph. She was so childishly open of her pleasure
at this that I did not tell her it was a mere trick of mine; that I had
told him to charge when he sprang up. She knew his eyes so little as to
think he displayed regard for rather than respect for my command. She
could not see that he begged me piteously to know _why_ he must crouch
there at a couple of strange inconsequential feet and see the good world
go suddenly wrong.

Still further, to make those days not bad days, Miss Kate would cross
our little common ground of an early evening to where I played the game
on my porch. Often I did this until dusk obscured the faces of the
cards. I faintly suspected in the course of these bird-like visits a
caprice in Miss Kate to know what it might be that I preferred to the
society of her mother on her own porch. She appeared to be more curious
than interested. She promptly made those observations which the
unillumined have ever considered it witty to make concerning those who
play at solitaire. But, finding that I had long ceased to be moved by
these, she was friendly enough to judge the game upon its merits. That
she judged it to be stupid was neither strange nor any reflection upon
the fairness of her mind. The game--in those profounder, rarer aspects
which alone dignify it--is not for women. I believe that the game of
cards to teach them phil