re was always a spiritual and mental reckoning of a painful
description: a soul's housecleaning which turned him out of doors a
miserable waif; and it invariably came too soon, before he had had
time to gloat over the blood on another boy's nose, or a man's
humiliation, or a woman's repentant blush. Instead of heartily
disliking people for the spiteful things they sometimes did, he was
apt to turn round and wonder if the fault had not been his; if he were
not the abysmal beast.

He had not half repaid Winifred Child for her rudeness with his
coldness, yet no sooner was he in the huge gray automobile--which
could comfortably have seated eight instead of six--than he felt a
pang of remorse, exactly like a gimlet twisting through his heart from
top to bottom.

"I oughtn't to have left her like that!" he reproached himself. "I
ought to have hung around and seen that everything went all right. She
said she had the address of a good, cheap boarding-house. But it may
have changed. Or it may be full. And, anyway, how will she get there?
She ought to take a cab. But will she? And if she does, won't she fall
dead at the price? I ought to have warned the poor child. There are
shoals of tips I might have put her up to if I hadn't always been
talking about myself. What if she _was_ cross? There must have been a
reason. I must have done something she didn't feel like pointing out
when I asked. What I don't know about women would make three
encyclopedias."

It was too late, however, to act upon second thoughts which might or
might not be "best." Peter was in the automobile, and it had started.
Even if he went back, it would doubtless be only to find Miss Child
gone. He tried to console himself with the fact that Ena had been nice
to the girl, and that Miss Child had said--or anyhow intimated--that
she would write. If she didn't, he could, at worst, find out her
whereabouts by going to Nadine. Superior as Miss Child was to the
other dryads, she would surely keep up communication with them. Miss
Devereux was the sort who might lunch with him on the strength of "old
friendship." He would give her oysters and orchids, and find out how
things were going with the girl who had left her dryadhood behind the
cabin door.

He tried to console himself with these arguments, but the pleasure of
homecoming was spoiled. Father did not show any very exuberant joy at
seeing him again, and it was disappointing to a warm-hearted nature
if people we