r, but their inner selves, their _egos_, go down before him. Yet from
the moment I first saw that man I dominated him. It's all in having an
_ego_ that means mastery, Aunt Bell. Browett has it himself, but I have
a greater one. Every time Browett's eyes meet mine he knows in his soul
that I'm his master--his _ego_ prostrates itself before mine--and yet
that man"--he concluded in a tone of distinguishable awe--"is worth all
the way from two to three hundred millions!"

"Mrs. Eversley is an unlucky little woman, from what I hear," began Aunt
Bell, once more with altruistic aims.

"That reminds me," said the Doctor, recalling himself from a downward
look at the grovelling Browett, "she made me promise to be in at four
o'clock. Really I couldn't evade her--it was either four o'clock to-day
or the first possible day. What could I do? Aunt Bell, I won't pretend
that this being looked up to and sought out is always disagreeable.
Contrary to the Pharisee, I say 'Thank God I _am_ as other men are!' I
have my human moments, but mostly it bores me, and especially these
half-religious, half-sentimental confidences of emotional women who
imagine their lives are tragedies. Now this woman believes her marriage
is unhappy--"

"Indeed, it is!" Aunt Bell broke in--this time effectually, for she
proceeded to relate of one Morris Upton Eversley a catalogue of
inelegancies that, if authoritative, left him, considered as a husband,
undesirable, not to say impracticable. His demerits, indeed, served to
bring the meal to a blithe and chatty close.

Aunt Bell's practice each day after luncheon was, in her own
terminology, to "go into the silence and concentrate upon the thought of
the All-Good." She was recalled from the psychic state on this
afternoon, though happily not before a good half-hour, by Nancy's knock
at her door.

She came in, cheerful, a small sheaf of papers in her hand. Aunt Bell,
finding herself restored and amiable, sat up to listen.

Nancy threw herself on the couch, with the air of a woman about to chat
confidentially from the softness of many gay pillows, dropping into the
attitude of tranquil relaxation that may yet bristle with eager mental
quills.

"The drollest thing, Aunt Bell! This morning instead of hearing Allan, I
went up to that trunk-room and rummaged through the chest that has all
those old papers and things of Grandfather Delcher's. And would you
believe it? For an hour or more there, I was reading bits