poor knight of
La Mancha who has been the laughing-stock of the world these many
centuries--whatever faults or foolishness may have been his, he was at
all events a gentleman.

Paul's instinct was to pity this woman for the past that had been hers;
his desire was to help her and protect her, to watch over her and fight
her battles for her. It was what is called Love. But there is no word in
any spoken language that covers so wide a field. Every day and all day
we call many things love which are not love. The real thing is as rare
as genius, but we usually fail to recognize its rarity. We misuse the
word, for we fail to draw the necessary distinctions. We fail to
recognize the plain and simple truth that many of us are not able to
love--just as there are many who are not able to play the piano or to
sing. We raise up our voices and make a sound, but it is not singing. We
marry and we give in marriage, but it is not loving. Love is like a
color--say, blue. There are a thousand shades of blue, and the outer
shades are at last not blue at all, but green or purple. So in love
there are a thousand shades, and very, very few of them are worthy of
the name.

That which Paul Howard Alexis felt at this time for Etta was merely the
chivalrous instinct that teaches men their primary duty toward
women--namely, to protect and respect them. But out of this instinct
grows the better thing--Love.

There are some women whose desire it is to be all things to all men
instead of every thing to one. This was the stumbling-block in the way
of Etta Bamborough. It was her instinct to please all at any price, and
her obedience to such instinct was often unconscious. She hardly knew
perhaps that she was trading upon a sense of chivalry rare in these
days, but had she known she could not have traded with a keener
comprehension of the commerce.

"I should like to forget the past altogether," she said. "But it is hard
for women to get rid of the past. It is rather terrible to feel that one
will be associated all one's life with a person for whom no one had any
respect. He was not honorable or--"

She paused; for the intuition of some women is marvellous. A slight
change of countenance had told her that charity, especially toward the
dead, is a commendable quality.

"The world," she went on rather hurriedly, "never makes allowances--does
it? He was easily led, I suppose. And people said things of him that
were not true. Did you ever hear of h