"Isabel doesn't seem a bit disturbed, for I think she anticipated her
father's point of view; and as for Charlie, seeing that his chief
source of income at present depends wholly on the favor of a man who is
angry enough to disinherit his daughter for wanting to marry him--well,
one would expect that Charlie would be depressed, or at least
thoughtful. But not at all. He's in the highest of spirits, and says
that the mere rumor that he is going to marry into the Hurd family will
establish a line of credit good enough to last ten years."

"But really--isn't the young man a bit mercurial?"

"Oh, awfully! To tell the truth, I was a little surprised when Isabel
took him, for under her society manner she's very sensible and
self-controlled. And yet Charlie's very attractive and amusing and
really clever at times, and she is just the kind of girl that ought to
take hold of him and tactfully make him amount to something. She'll be
the best thing in the world for him."

"I wonder why a man almost always falls in love either with a girl who
is just the sort or not at all the sort he should have selected. It's
always one or the other--never any middle course. I wonder what kind
of girl you would say was just the sort for me."

"One would have to know a man extremely well to venture a suggestion on
such a point, don't you think?" Miss Maitland parried.

"Perhaps," Smith agreed. "And after all, since I can't myself say
exactly what sort of girl would be most perfectly suited to my special
peculiarities, it would be a little unreasonable to expect any one else
to do so."

His companion gave a suppressed sigh of relief that a subject which
might have developed elements of high hazard seemed now to be avoided.
She was not quite sure what she thought of the man before her, but she
knew that he seemed strong and vital and sincere. From Mr. Osgood she
had learned that other people of considerable discrimination held a
like opinion.

It was quite strange. Superficially, introspection would have led her
to believe that she would have been attracted by some one nearer to her
own enthusiasms, her own breeding, her own ideals. This young man was
alien to her in birth, and his education had been along totally
different lines, and logically they should not have been in sympathy
one with the other, for he made her ideals seem somehow bloodless and
her enthusiasms sterile and hardly worth while. It was certainly
perplexing, f