happy and that he would never know, that he would come to look upon me as a helper and a comrade. That perhaps with children he would come to feel affection for me, to have a need of me. I could have been content with that."
She had been standing with her elbow resting on the mantelpiece, gazing into the fire. Now she straightened herself and looked the other in the eyes.
"But I am glad I was wrong," she went on. "I'd be glad to think that he could love—madly, foolishly, if you will—forgetting himself and his ambition, forgetting all things, feeling that nothing else mattered. Of course, if it could have been for me"—she gave a little smile—"that would have been heaven. But I would rather—honestly rather that he loved this girl than that he never loved any one—was incapable of love. It sounds odd, but I love him the better for it. He is greater than I thought him."
The other was staring at her. The girl moved over to her and laid a hand upon her shoulder.
"I know what you are thinking," she said. "It doesn't last. A few years at most and the glory has departed. I'm not so sure of that."
She had moved away. Mechanically she was arranging books and papers on her desk. "I was
