on, studied the mine and shut my eyes to the victims. In the end,
I steadied, and so will you. However, Scott," and the long, nervous
fingers shut hard about the hand above them; "I am quite well aware
that the intermediate stage of funking the side issue is bound to give
us an occasional bad half-hour. Still, as you love your profession,
hang on to it by the last little corner, until you steady down."

"Yes." Brenton spoke slowly, while there flashed before him in swift
alignment all the details for which his profession stood: place and
popularity and influence, the best of human and social ties, the
fulfilled ambitions, the closest sort of contacts with his kind. All
these he saw, as rounded out to their fullest measure. Beside them was
himself, outwardly active, spiritually as stark and still as was the
broken body of his friend before him. In that instant, it was given to
Brenton to measure himself beside his possibilities, and the measure
was not wholly reassuring. "Yes," he repeated slowly; "but what is
going to be the final good gained by my hanging on, in case I never
steady down?"

Reed compressed his lips. Then, out of his own experience, he spoke.

"In that case, at least you'll have had the satisfaction of finding out
that, science and theology to the contrary notwithstanding, in the
final end it's solely up to you."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"But, really, she wasn't always so impossible," Olive argued above the
coffee, that night.

"All things are possible to an open mind," her father rejoined
placidly.

Olive changed her phrase for one more downright.

"Then, if you must have it, she wasn't always so totally vulgar as she
is now."

"Time always brings development," Doctor Keltridge reminded her
benignly, while he thrashed about in his cup with a spoon, much as he
might have wielded a glass rod in a delinquent mixture. Then, his spoon
poised in mid air, he asked, with a sudden show of curiosity, "On what
do you base your theory, Olive?"

Olive's reply was feminine, and very convincing to herself.

"Because, if she had been, she never would have been asked out to
dinner."

"Duty," Doctor Keltridge suggested.

"Well, not twice at the same place, then."

"She doesn't eat with her knife," the doctor responded hopefully.
"Therefore she must be evolving just a very little."

"How do you know?"

"Because she used to--evidently. That type always does."

Olive laughed.

"Father, I don't bel