too, there would be no way out.

"Frank has been all I expected of him," she repeated, as though anxious
to do her husband justice. "He has made money. He spends it generously.
If I live here modestly, with but one maid, it is because of a
preference which I have developed for simplicity. I might have a dozen
if I asked it, and I think Frank is somewhat surprised, and, it may
be, disappointed, that I don't ask it. Although not a man for display
himself, he likes to see me make display. It's a strange thing, isn't
it, that a husband should wish his wife to be admired by other men?"

"Some are successful in that," Grant remarked.

"Some are more successful than they intend to be."

"Frank, for instance?" he queried, pointedly.

"I have not sought any man's admiration," she went on, with her
astonishing frankness. "I am too independent for that. What do I care
for their admiration? But every woman wants love."

Grant had changed his position, and sat with his elbows upon his knees,
his chin resting upon his hands. "You know, Zen," he said, using her
Christian name deliberately, "the picture I drew that day by the river?
That is the picture I have carried in my mind ever since--shall carry to
the end. Perhaps it has led me to be imprudent--"

"Imprudent?"

"Has brought me here to-night, for example."

"You had my invitation."

"True. But why develop another situation which, as you say, has no way
out?"

"Do you want to go?"

"No, Zen, no! I want to stay--with you--always! But organized society
must respect its own conventions."

She arose and stood by his chair, letting her hand fall beside his
cheek.

"You silly boy!" she said. "You didn't organize society, nor subscribe
to its conventions. Still, I suppose there must be a code of some kind,
and we shall respect it. You had your chance, Denny, and you passed it
up."

"Had my chance?"

"Yes. I refused you in words, I know, but actions speak louder--"

"But when you told me you were engaged what could I honorably do?"

"More--very much more--than you can do now. You could have shown me my
mistake. How much better to have learned it then, from you, than later,
by my own experience! You could have swept me off my feet, just as Frank
did. You did nothing. If I had sought evidence to prove how impractical
you are, as compared with my super-practical husband, I would have found
it in the way you handled, or rather failed to handle, that situation."

"What