, which made him indifferent to other things.

He forgot Myra's presence. Six months earlier he would have resented
her being there, he would have been uneasy. Now it made no difference.
He had ceased to think of Myra as a possible menace. Lately he had not
thought of her or her affairs at all.

She came now and sat down upon the porch step within arm's length of
him, looking at him in thoughtful silence.

"Is it such a tragedy, after all?" she said at last.

"Is what?"

He took refuge in refusal to understand, although he understood
instantly what Myra meant. But he shrank from her intuitive
penetration of his troubled spirit. Like any other wounded animal, he
wanted to be left alone.

"You know what I mean," she said. "You are afraid of Doris seeing you.
That's plain enough. Is it so terrible a thing, after all? If she
can't stand the sight of your face, you're better off without her."

"It's easy to be philosophic about some one else's troubles,"
Hollister muttered. "You can be off with one love and be reasonably
sure of another before long. I can't. I'm not made that way, I don't
think. And if I were, I'm too badly handicapped."

"You haven't a very charitable opinion of me, have you, Robin?" she
said reflectively. "You rather despise me for doing precisely what you
yourself have done, making a bid for happiness as chance offered. Only
I haven't found it, and you have. So you are morally superior, and
your tragedy must naturally be profound because your happiness seems
threatened."

"Oh, damn the moral considerations," he said wearily. "It isn't that.
I don't blame you for anything you ever did. Why should I? I'm a
bigamist. I'm the father of an illegitimate son. According to the
current acceptance of morality, I've contaminated and disgraced an
innocent woman. Yet I've never been and am not now conscious of any
regrets. I don't feel ashamed. I don't feel that I have sinned. I
merely grasped the only chance, the only possible chance that was in
reach. That's all you did. As far as you and I are concerned, there
isn't any question of blame."

"Are you sure," she asked point-blank, "that your face will make any
difference to Doris?"

"How can it help?" he replied gloomily. "If you had your eyes shut and
were holding in your hands what you thought was a pretty bird and
suddenly opened your eyes and saw it was a toad, wouldn't you recoil?"

"Your simile is no good. If Doris really loved you, it was not be