itself as it
probably will, or I am ready, at your word, to hear everything and to
judge for you as I would judge for myself. No--no, don't answer me now,"
he added, "carry it away with you, and remember or forget it, as you
choose."

Though there were tears in her eyes as she looked at him, she turned
away, after an instant, with a flippant laugh.

"Why, it all sounds as if I were really unhappy!" she exclaimed, "but
you won't believe that, will you?"

"I'll gladly believe otherwise when you prove it."

"But haven't I proved it? Don't I prove it every day I live?"

"You prove to me at this minute that you are particularly wretched," he
returned.

"I am not--I am not," she retorted angrily, while a frown drew her dark
brows together. "You have no right to think such things of me--they are
not true."

"I have a right to think anything that occurs to me," he corrected
quietly, "though I am willing to beg your pardon for putting it into
words. Well, since you assure me that you are entirely happy, I can
only say that I am overjoyed to hear it."

"I am happy," she insisted passionately; and a little later when she was
alone in the street, she told herself that a lie had become more
familiar to her than the truth. The conversation with Adams appeared a
mistake when she looked back upon it--for instead of lessening it seemed
only to increase the weight of her troubles--so she determined presently
to think no more either of Adams or of the reasons which had prompted
her impulsive visit to him. To forget oneself! Yes, Gerty was right in
the end, and the object of all society, all occupations, all amusements,
showed to her now as so many unsuccessful attempts to escape the
haunting particular curse of personality. Gerty escaped it by her
frivolous pursuits and her interminable flirtations, which meant
nothing; Kemper escaped it by living purely in the objective world of
sense; Adams escaped it--The name checked her abruptly, and she stopped
in her thoughts as if a light had flashed suddenly before her eyes.
Here, at last, was the explanation of happiness, she felt, and yet she
felt also, that it presented itself to her mind in an enigma which she
could not solve--for Adams, she recognised, had mastered, not escaped,
his personality. The poison of bitterness was gone, but the
effectiveness of power was still as great; and his temperament, in
passing through the fiery waters of experience, was mellowed into a
charm whi