ertained a profound respect
for any rigid ethical standard; and had Laura maintained her unyielding
attitude, he would probably have suffered a hopeless passion for her to
the end of his embittered but still elastic experience. Though he was
hardly aware of it, the only virtues he could perfectly appreciate were
the ones which usually present themselves in a masculine shape--courage,
honour, fair play among men and chivalry to women; and it seemed to him
that Laura, in exacting his entire fidelity, was acting upon an
essentially masculine prerogative. The more she demanded, the more,
unconsciously to himself, he felt that he was ready to surrender--and he
cursed now the intervention of Madame Alta with a vehemence he would
never have felt had the course of his love flowed on smoothly in spite
of his relapses.

"What a damned fool I made of myself," he confessed, as he walked
rapidly away from Gramercy Park. "I got no pleasure from seeing Jennie
Alta--not an atom of enjoyment even--and yet I've ruined my whole life
because of her, and the chances are nine to one that if I had it to go
over I'd act the same blooming idiot again. And all the time I'm more in
love with Laura than I've ever been with any woman in my life. Here's
the whole happiness of my future swept away at a single blow."

And the domestic dream which Madame Alta had destroyed was mapped out
for him by his imagination, until she seemed, not only to have prevented
his marriage, but, by some singular eccentricity of feeling, to have
murdered the son who had played so large a part in his confident
expectations.

"But why should this have happened to me when I'm no worse than other
men?" he questioned, "when I'm even better than a hundred whom I know?
I've never willingly harmed any human being in my life--I've never
cheated, I've never lied to get myself out of a tight place, I've never
breathed a word against the reputation of any woman." He thought of
Brady, who, although he was a cad and had ruined Connie Adams, was now
reconciled with his wife and received everywhere he went; of Perry
Bridewell whose numerous affairs had never interfered with either his
domestic existence or his appetite. Beside either of these men he felt
himself to glow inwardly with virtue, yet he saw that his greater
decency had not in the least prevented his receiving the larger
punishment; and it seemed to him that he must be pursued by some malign
destiny because, though he was