It was the whole familiar picture of him now--triumphantly painted in
the harmonies of life, masterfully toned to subdue its discords--that
drove her back into herself. When she spoke next, she had regained the
self-control which under his unexpected attack she had come near
losing; and her words issued from behind the closed gates--as through
a crevice of the closed gates:

"I was reading one of the new books that came the other day, the deep
grave ones you sent for. It is written by a deep grave German, and it
is worked out in the deep grave German way. The whole purpose of it
is to show that any woman in the life of any man is merely--an
Incident. She may be this to him, she may be that to him; for a
briefer time, for a greater time; but all along and in the end, at
bottom, she is to him--an Incident."

He did not take his eyes from hers and his smile slowly broadened.

"Were those the discords?" he asked gently.

She did not reply.

He turned in his chair and looking over his shoulder at her, he raised
his arm and drew the point of his pen across the backs of a stack of
magazines on top of his desk.

"Here is a work," he said, "not written by a German or by any other
man, but by a woman whose race I do not know: here is a work the sole
purpose of which is to prove that any man is merely an Incident in the
life of any woman. He may be this to her, he may be that to her; for