he nature of his love;
perhaps, in time, succeeded. But all love has a mystic triple root;
you cannot unravel the web, on earth at least. Religious, sexual,
spiritual,--all are intertwined.

Jamie and Mercedes lived on in the little brick house, as he had
promised. Only one thing the Bowdoins noticed: he now dressed and
talked and acted like a man grown very old. His coats were different
again; his manner was more eccentric than ever. His hair helped him a
little, for it really grew quite white. He asked Mercedes now to call
him father.

"Jamie is posing as a patriarch," said Mr. Bowdoin; he smiled, and
then he sighed.

Old Mr. Bowdoin did not forget his promise to have his granddaughters
call upon Mercedes. Now and then they sent her tickets for church
fairs. But it takes more love than most women have for each other to
give the tact, the self-abnegation, that such unequal relations, to
be permanent, require. The momentary gush of sympathy that the Bowdoin
girls felt, upon their grandfather's account of Sadie's loneliness,
was chilled at the first haughty word Mercedes gave them. It takes an
older nature, more humbled by living than is an American young lady's,
to meet the poor in money without patronizing, and the proud at heart
without seeming rude. So this attempted intimacy faded.

Jamie gave his life to her. His manner at the office altered: he
became proud and reserved. More wonderful still, he shortened his time
of attendance; not that he was inattentive while there, but he no
longer observed unnecessary hours, as he had been wont to do, after
the bank closed; as soon as Mr. James Bowdoin left, he would lock up
the office and go himself. His life was but waiting upon Mercedes.

When he was in the office he would sit twiddling his thumbs. The
pretense at bookkeeping, unreal bookkeeping, he abandoned. The last
old ship, the Maine Lady, had served him in good stead for many years;
he had double-entered, ledgered, and balanced her simple debits and
credits like a stage procession. But now he made no fiction about the
vanished business.

It was characteristic of Jamie that still he did not hanker for more
money. He recognized his adopted daughter's need for sympathy, for
emotions, even for love, if you will; but yet it did not occur to him
that he might earn more money. His salary was ample, and out of it he
had made some savings. And Mercedes had that impatience of details,
that _ennui_ of money matters, tha