ion. Sleeping
garments are practically barred for the same reason. Shaving becomes a
rare luxury. A lost tooth-brush may not be replaced for a month. In time
one may bring himself to eat with a knife for the reason that it is hard
for a hungry man to feed himself with a fork that has but two tines. The
finger tips cease to be the culminating standard of the gentleman. It
is hard to keep a supply of fresh linen when one is constantly in the
saddle, and a constant weariness of body and a ravenous appetite make a
man indifferent to things like a bad bed and worse food, particularly
as he must philosophically put up with them, anyhow. Of all these things
the man himself may be quite unconscious and yet they affect him more
deeply than he knows and show to a woman even in his voice, his walk,
his mouth--everywhere save in his eyes, which change only in severity,
or in kindliness or when there has been some serious break-down of soul
or character within. And the woman will not look to his eyes for the
truth--which makes its way slowly--particularly when the woman has
striven for the very things that the man has so recklessly let go. She
would never suffer herself to let down in such a way and she does not
understand how a man can.

Hale's life, since his college doors had closed behind him, had always
been a rough one. He had dropped from civilization and had gone back
into it many times. And each time he had dropped, he dropped the deeper,
and for that reason had come back into his own life each time with more
difficulty and with more indifference. The last had been his roughest
year and he had sunk a little more deeply just at the time when June had
been pluming herself for flight from such depths forever. Moreover,
Hale had been dominant in every matter that his hand or his brain had
touched. His habit had been to say "do this" and it was done. Though
he was no longer acting captain of the Police Guard, he always acted as
captain whenever he was on hand, and always he was the undisputed leader
in all questions of business, politics or the maintenance of order and
law. The success he had forged had hardened and strengthened his mouth,
steeled his eyes and made him more masterful in manner, speech and
point of view, and naturally had added nothing to his gentleness, his
unselfishness, his refinement or the nice consideration of little things
on which women lay such stress. It was an hour by sun when he clattered
through the