before an easel, and on the other hand, Carmen
had often been conscious of the fumes of a tobacco pipe penetrating her
cloistered seclusion, and had seen across the passage, vaguely enveloped
in the same nicotine cloud, an American Olympian, in a rocking chair,
with his feet on the mantel shelf. They had once or twice met on the
staircase, on which occasion Thatcher had greeted her with a word or two
of respectful yet half-humorous courtesy,--a courtesy which never really
offends a true woman, although it often piques her self-aplomb by the
slight assumption of superiority in the humorist. A woman is quick to
recognize the fact that the great and more dangerous passions are always
SERIOUS, and may be excused if in self-respect she is often induced to
try if there be not somewhere under the skin of this laughing Mercutio
the flesh and blood of a Romeo. Thatcher was by nature a defender and
protector; weakness, and weakness alone, stirred the depths of his
tenderness,--often, I fear, only through its half-humorous aspects,--and
on this plane he was pleased to place women and children. I mention this
fact for the benefit of the more youthful members of my species, and am
satisfied that an unconditional surrender and the complete laying down
at the feet of Beauty of all strong masculinity is a cheap Gallicism
that is untranslatable to most women worthy the winning. For a woman
MUST always look up to the man she truly loves,--even if she has to go
down on her knees to do it.

Only the masculine reader will infer from this that Carmen was in love
with Thatcher; the more critical and analytical feminine eye will
see nothing herein that might not have happened consistently with
friendship. For Thatcher was no sentimentalist; he had hardly paid a
compliment to the girl,--even in the unspoken but most delicate form
of attention. There were days when his room door was closed; there were
days succeeding these blanks when he met her as frankly and naturally as
if he had seen her yesterday. Indeed, on those days following his flight
the simple-minded Carmen, being aware--heaven knows how--that he had not
opened his door during that period, and fearing sickness, sudden death,
or perhaps suicide, by her appeals to the landlady, assisted unwittingly
in discovering his flight and defection. As she was for a few moments
as indignant as Mrs. Plodgitt, it is evident that she had but little
sympathy with the delinquent. And besides, hitherto