She has been fair, though. She has tried to get back
where she was before she left and I thought I would win her again in
time. I was so sure of it that it never troubled me. You have seen how
it was. And you have seen how she was always wanting the life that she
had learned to want while she was away--the life that you came from,
Patches. I have been mighty glad for your friendship with her, too,
because I thought she would learn from you that a man could have all
that is worth having in _that_ life, and still be happy and contented
_here_. And she would have learned, I am sure. She couldn't help seeing
it. But now that damned fool who knows no more of real manhood than I
do of his profession has spoiled it all."

"But Phil, I don't understand. What has Parkhill to do with Reid's
selling out?"

"Why, don't you see?" Phil returned savagely. "He's the supreme
representative of the highest highbrowed culture, isn't he? He's a lord
high admiral, duke, or potentate of some sort, in the world of loftiest
thought, isn't he? He lives, moves and has his being in the lofty realms
of the purely spiritual, doesn't he? He's cultured, and cultivated, and
spiritualized, until he vibrates nothing but pure soul--whatever that
means--and he's refined himself, and mental-disciplined himself, and
soul-dominated himself, until there's not an ounce of red blood left in
his carcass. Get him between you and the sun, after what he calls a
dinner, and you can see every material mouthful that he, has disgraced
himself by swallowing. He's not human, I tell you; he's only a kind of a
he-ghost, and ought to be fed on sterilized moonbeams and pasteurized
starlight."

"Amen!" said Patches solemnly, when Phil paused for lack of breath.
"But, Phil, your eloquent characterization does not explain what the
he-ghost has to do with the sale of the Pot-Hook-S outfit."

Phil's voice again dropped into its hopeless key as he answered. "You
remember how, from the very first, Kitty--well--sort of worshiped him,
don't you?"

"You mean how she worshiped his aesthetic cult, don't you?" corrected
Patches quietly.

"I suppose that's it," responded Phil gloomily. "Well, Uncle Will says
that they have been together mighty near every day for the past three
months, and that about half of the time they have been over at Kitty's
home. He has discovered, he says, that Kitty possesses a rare and
wonderful capacity for absorbing the higher truths of the more purely
i