d not her own spirit have its flaws? Doubtless. Who was she, then,
to judge him? Ah, but they did not fit into her flaws!

Kate Waddington now--Eleanor turned her thoughts in that direction
with difficulty--her flaws were akin to his. Kate could tolerate and
admire the whole of him. His lapses in finer standards, such as that
desertion to Northrup--did they not fit like the segments of a broken
coin with Kate's diplomacies of that very day, her subtle reaching to
discover if Eleanor were really a rival? Kate would weigh his
compromises with honor as lightly as he would weigh those pretty
treacheries. He would be successful; everyone had felt that in him
from his very first flash on the horizon. Kate would help him to the
kind of success he wanted. Her tact, her diplomacies, her _flair_ for
engrafting herself, would be the very best support to his direct
methods of assault. They belonged to each other; and since now Kate's
desires in the matter had become manifest, only one thing remained.

All this allowed, what should her own line of conduct be? How should
she bear herself in the days and weeks when pure human kindness must
inhibit her from delivering a shock? Would it be necessary to commit
the inner treason of posing to him as a secret fiancee? Well, that
must be lived out, step by step. She could at least take all possible
means, within the bounds of kindness, of withdrawing herself gradually
from him, of paving the way for the ultimate confession. Kate
Waddington would help in that. There, her own game and Kate's ran
parallel.

This discovery of Kate at the end of the tangled strings brought a tug
at her heart, a black cloud to her spirit. She hated Kate Waddington.
It made her grip the pillows to think how much she hated. Her mood
descending into a bitter, morbid jealousy which had no reason for
being, but which momentarily swept all her resolutions away, sent her
mind and body whirling back toward Bertram Chester.

That passed. The last trace of her wild animal hatred for Kate
Waddington was borne away on a prayer of the old faith which held her
instincts. She rose from her bed in a state of fixed determination
that never faltered again.

When Eleanor was dressed, she turned not to the front of the house
where the business of drawing back a life was afoot, but to the fresh
silences of her garden. She walked to the lattice whose view commanded
the bay and the distant Gate. It was a quiet, dull-gold morning on