fort to brace
herself to the inquiry. She couldn't deny that Franklin hadn't their
charm; but charm was a very superficial thing compared to moral beauty.

Althea could not have faced the perturbing fact that charm, to her,
counted for more than goodness. She clung to her ethical valuations of
life, feeling, instinctively, that only in this category lay her own
significance. To abandon the obvious weights and measures was to find
herself buffeted and astray in a chaotic and menacing universe. Goodness
was her guide, and she could cling to it if the enchanting
will-o'-the-wisp did not float into sight to beckon and bewilder her.
She indignantly repudiated the conception of a social order founded on
charm rather than on solid worth; yet, like other frail mortals, she
found herself following what allured her nature rather than what
responded to the neatly tabulated theories of her mind. It was her
beliefs and her instincts that couldn't be made to tally, and in her
refusal to see that they did not tally lay her danger, as now, when with
an artificially simplified attitude she waited eagerly for the coming of
somebody who would restore to her her own sense of significance.

Franklin Winslow Kane arrived late one afternoon, and Althea arranged
that she should greet him alone. Miss Buckston, Aunt Julia, the girls,
and Herbert Vaughan had driven over to a neighbouring garden-party, and
Althea alleged the arrival of her old friend as a very valid excuse. She
walked up and down the drawing-room, dressed in one of her prettiest
dresses; the soft warmth and light of the low sun filled the air, and
her heart expanded with it. She wondered if--ah, if only!--Franklin
would himself be able to thrill her, and her deep expectation almost
amounted to a thrill. Expectation culminated in a wave of excitement and
emotion as the door opened and her faithful lover stood before her.

Franklin Winslow Kane (he signed himself more expeditiously as Franklin
W. Kane) was a small, lean man. He had an air of tension, constant, yet
under such perfect control, that it counted as placidity rather than as
strain. His face was sallow and clean-shaven, and the features seemed
neatly drawn on a flat surface rather than modelled, so discreet and so
meagre were the sallies and shadows. His lips were calm and firmly
closed, and had always the appearance of smiling; of his eyes one felt
the bright, benignant beam rather than the shape or colour. His straight