with himself would lead on to disgust, or, rather, distaste for her. It
is the primal instinct of vanity to dislike and to shun those who have
witnessed its humiliation.

"I believe I am coming to my senses," he said. And he ventured to call
her up before him for examination and criticism. This as he stood upon
the forward deck of the ferry with the magnificent panorama of New York
before him. New York! And he, of its strong men, of the few in all that
multitude who had rank and power--he who had won as his promised wife
the daughter of one of the dozen mighty ones of the nation! What an
ill-timed, what an absurd, what a crazy step down this excursion of
his! And for what? There he summoned her before him. And at the first
glance of his fancy at her fair sweet face and lovely figure, he
quailed. He was hearing her voice again. He was feeling the yield of her
smooth, round form to his embrace, the yield of her smooth white cheek
to his caress. In his nostrils was the fragrance of her youth, the
matchless perfume of nature, beyond any of the distillations of art in
its appeal to his normal and healthy nerves. And he burned with the fire
only she could quench. "I must--I must.--My God, I _must_!" he muttered.

When he reached home, he asked whether his sister was in. The butler
said that Mrs. Fitzhugh had just come from the theater. In search of
her, he went to the library, found her seated there with a book and a
cigarette, her wrap thrown back upon her chair. "Come out to supper with
me, Ursula," he said. "I'm starved and bored."

"Why, you're not dressed!" exclaimed his sister. "I thought you were at
the Cameron dance with Josephine."

"Had to cut it out," replied he curtly. "Will you come?"