revelations was a continual refreshing variety, inasmuch as what she
had to reveal was only fair and delicate and true. But what made the
girl so provokingly happy? so secure in her contentment? Mr. Dillwyn
thought himself a happy man; content with himself and with life; yet
life had reached something too like a dead level, and himself, he was
conscious, led a purposeless sort of existence. What purpose indeed was
there to live for? But this little girl--Philip recalled the bright,
soft, clear expression of eye with which she had looked at him; the
very sweet curves of happy consciousness about her lips; the confident
bearing with which she had spoken, as one who had found a treasure
which, as she said, satisfied her. But it cannot! said Philip to
himself. It is that she is pure and sweet, and takes happiness like a
baby, sucking in what seems to her the pure milk of existence. It is
true, the remembered expression of Lois's features did not quite agree
with this explanation; pure and sweet, no doubt, but also grave and
high, and sometimes evidencing a keen intellectual perception and
wisdom. Not just like a baby; and he found he could not dismiss the
matter so. What made her, then, so happy? Philip could not remember
ever seeing a grown person who seemed so happy; whose happiness seemed
to rest on such a steady foundation. Can she be in love? thought
Dillwyn; and the idea gave him a most unreasonable thrill of
displeasure. For a moment only; then his reason told him that the look
in Lois's face was not like that. It was not the brilliance of ecstasy;
it was the sunshine of deep and fixed content. Why in the world should
Mr. Dillwyn wish that Lois were not so content? so beyond what he or
anybody could give her? And having got to this point, Mr. Dillwyn
pulled himself up again. What business was it of his, the particular
spring of happiness she had found to drink of? and if it quenched her
thirst, as she said it did, why should he be anything but glad of it?
Why, even if Lois were happy in some new-found human treasure, should
it move him, Philip Dillwyn, with discomfort? Was it possible that he
too could be following in those steps of Tom Caruthers, from which
Tom's mother was at such pains to divert her son? Philip began to see
where he stood. Could it be?--and what if?

He studied the question now with a clear view of its bearings. He had
got out of a fog. Lois was all he had thought of her. Would she do for
a wife f