rtively watching him smiled intuitively; he
was a very transparent young man, after all!

And yet how perfectly he fitted into the environment's scheme! In the
soft rose light his clean-cut aquiline profile was as perfect as a
well-chiseled cameo in red bronze. Vigor, strength and indomitable power
breathed from every well-balanced line of his well-knit frame.

"Fit, and ready, to fight for his strong young life!" she was thinking
admiringly, "a man among a thousand in these degenerate days. A 'running
mate' who would go far with the wolf of his choosing. I wonder what he
ever saw in that insipid goody-goody. She will tame him down to
mediocrity, never realizing what she is desecrating, what she is robbing
some other better-fitted woman of. She ought to have married Anselm!"

At the thought of her husband her face hardened. Very contemptuous did
she wax in her merciless comparison of him with the stalwart young
fellow sitting there so lordly in the arrogance of lusty manliness. Now
that it was too late she realized that she had sold herself for a price!
Of course Brevoort had paid, generously, magnificently, and without
demur; but how had she benefited thereby? To the end only of being the
leader of her social set, queen regnant of a symposium of sexless
degenerates with whom she had not one mental or physical desire in
common! The best proof of it was that she was here, far from their
wearying inanities and hollow gilded gauds by deliberate choice. Her
meditations terminated abruptly at this point; was that the real reason
of her coming? She turned to him with a curious shyness, thankful for
that rose-colored globe.

"You are fond of children, Mr. Douglass?" It was more an assertion than
a question. His face lit up rarely.

"I love them!" he said, simply. "They are the sweetest flowers in God's
garden!"

"Even as I do!" There was something strangely like a sob in her low
voice, but she had not meant him to hear. "I congratulate you on your
conquest of the little Blount girl; her adoration of you is actually
idyllic!"

"Oh, Eulalie and I have been sweethearts for ages," he said, laughingly.
"It was a case of love at first sight."

"Happy Eulalie!" she said, enviously. "She has been favored beyond the
computation of the gods. That beatitude falls to the lot of but few of
her sex."

"Are you voicing a personal grievance?" His eyes were full of amused
incredulity. She smiled a little bitterly but evaded his ques