l but lost the
right to have. But he in no sense just then wanted Nancy; it was what
she represented. She was what Mrs. Tweksbury had said, the kind of girl
that men enshrine in their souls and never replace even when they gladly
accept a substitute.

"If only----" and then Raymond's eyes looked queer. He was living over
the black hour which he did not realize was the hour of his soul's
birth. He'd never have that battle again, he inwardly swore, but that
was poor comfort.

And then, while talking to Nancy, he grew very gay and light-hearted,
like someone who had made a safe passage past the siren's rocks. Not
that it mattered, except that one did not want to be shipwrecked. Of
course, Raymond knew, he wouldn't forget while he lived, the other
thing just past, but it had not wrecked him.

After that dinner nothing would have happened if all sorts of pressure
had not been brought to bear. Raymond was affectionately inclined to be
kind to Mrs. Tweksbury because he knew he had wronged her faith in him,
though she would never know; so he accompanied her whenever she
beckoned, and she beckoned frequently and always toward Nancy.

Then Clive Cameron happened, at the crucial moment, to be on the middle
of the stage for the same reasons that Raymond was there. Cameron
followed Martin's vigorous beckoning, although he was bored to the
limit. He liked Nancy and thought her very beautiful, but Cameron had
not enshrined any type of woman--a few men are like that. He knew,
because he was young and vital and sane, that he had a shrine, or
pedestal, in his make-up and if, at any time, he saw a girl that made
him forget, for a moment, the profession that was absorbing him just
then, he'd humbly implore her to fill the empty niche and after that he
would do the glorifying. But if it pleased his uncle to trot him about,
he went with charming grace; and because it did not affect him in the
least, he played almost boisterously with Nancy and made her jollier
than she had ever been in her life.

He made her forget things! Forget The Gap!

Cameron simply knocked unpleasant memories into limbo; he was like a
fresh northwest wind--he revived everyone. He made Doris think of David
Martin as she first knew him--and naturally Doris adored Cameron. She
came near praying that Nancy might, after a fashion, pay her debts for
her. But no! she would not influence Nancy--she must be respected in her
beautiful freedom as Joan was in hers.

So Do