ve thought you warm-hearted--even impulsive: that your indifference is
not always real. But of that, I am not sure. Still, I believe you
possess a lower and a better nature."

"You seem to have made wonderful discoveries in a very few hours."

"I have been working hard."

"I hope the verdict is favorable."

"Well, yes--in a way."

"So bad as that!"

"No, not bad at all. It is merely that you have bullied your natural
character. You have made it toe the mark and behave itself. Never given
it any vacations, perhaps."

She regarded him intently, as if in doubt as to his meaning.

"But you don't know the cause," he added.

She made no reply.

"The cause," he said, "is the expression of your face."

"Ah!"

"Yes. It is impossible for any being of earthly origin to possess the
celestial qualities promised in your countenance. It is out of harmony
with terrestrial things. Why, when those three men put out their hands
this morning for you to touch, I held my breath at their presumption. I
looked for three bolts from heaven to wither the extended arms."

"And your own face, Mr. Boyd, gives no indication of the subtleness of
your irony: unkind, perhaps, but extremely clever."

"Irony! Never! I had no such thought! I am merely announcing the
discovery that with a different exterior you would have been less
perfect; but more comfortable."

"If this is not irony, it is something still more offensive. I gave you
credit for a finer touch."

"I may be clumsy, but not malicious."

"Then explain."

"Well, you see, having a tender conscience, you have felt a sense of
fraud whenever confronted by your own reflection. Being human, you have
had, presumably, ambitions, envies, appetites, prejudices, vanities, and
other human ills of which the face before you gave no indication. And
so, feeling the preternatural excellence of that face a lie, you have
tried to live up to it; that is, to avoid being a humbug. In short, your
life has been a strenuous endeavor to be unnecessarily wise and
impossibly good."

As their side of the steamer rose high above the sea, after an unusual
plunge, he added: "And I am afraid you have succeeded."

She remained silent, lost apparently in another revery, watching the
changes in the west.

The light was fading. On sea and sky a more melancholy tone had
come,--dull, slaty grays crowding in from every quarter. And over the
darkening waters there seemed a tragic note, half-threatening,
int