ything
of myself."

This was sufficiently morbid, and he usually proved it by going early to
his own quarters, where dawn sometimes surprised him asleep in his
chair, white and worn, all the youth in his hollow face extinct, his
wife's picture fallen face downward on the floor.

But he always picked it up again when he awoke, and carefully dusted
it, too, even when half stupefied with sleep.

* * * * *

Returning from their gallop, Miss Erroll had very little to say. Selwyn,
too, was silent and absent-minded. The girl glanced furtively at him
from time to time, not at all enlightened. Man, naturally, was to her an
unknown quantity. In fact she had no reason to suspect him of being
anything more intricate than the platitudinous dance or dinner partner
in black and white, or any frock-coated entity in the afternoon, or any
flannelled individual at the nets or on the links or cantering about the
veranda of club, casino, or cottage, in evident anxiety to be
considerate and agreeable.

This one, however, appeared to have individual peculiarities; he
differed from his brother Caucasians, who should all resemble one
another to any normal girl. For one thing he was subject to illogical
moods--apparently not caring whether she noticed them or not. For
another, he permitted himself the liberty of long and unreasonable
silences whenever he pleased. This she had accepted unquestioningly in
the early days when she was a little in awe of him, when the discrepancy
of their ages and experiences had not been dissipated by her first
presumptuous laughter at his expense.

Now it puzzled her, appearing as a specific trait differentiating him
from Man in the abstract.

He had another trick, too, of retiring within himself, even when smiling
at her sallies or banteringly evading her challenge to a duel of wits.
At such times he no longer looked very young; she had noticed that more
than once. He looked old, and ill-tempered.

Perhaps some sorrow--the actuality being vague in her mind; perhaps
some hidden suffering--but she learned that he had never been wounded in
battle and had never even had measles.

The sudden sullen pallor, the capricious fits of silent reserve, the
smiling aloofness, she never attributed to the real source. How could
she? The Incomprehensible Thing was a Finality accomplished according to
law. And the woman concerned was now another man's wife. Which
conclusively proved that t