resently, rousing himself, "the thing is no more
important than I choose to make it. Ordinarily, yes. But in this case
the thing to be considered is its effect on Julia's character, and if
ever any soul was pure, hers is!

"And if we marry, we must simply make up our minds that the past is
dead!" And suddenly Jim's heart grew lighter, and the black mood of the
past hour seemed to drop. He stretched himself luxuriously and folded
his arms. "If Julia isn't a hundred per cent, sweeter and better and
finer than these friends of Babbie's, who go chasing about to bad plays
and read all the rottenest books that are printed," he said, "then
there's no such thing as a good woman! My little girl--I'm not half
worthy of _her_, that's the truth!"

"Hello, Jim!" said Gray Babcock, coming in from the theatre, and
stretching his long cold hands over the dying fire. "We thought you
might come in to-night. Hazzard and Tom Parley had a little party for
Miss Manning, of the 'Dainty Duchess' Company, you know--awfully pretty
girl, straight, too, they say. There were a couple of other girls, and
Roy Grinell--things were just about starting up when I came away!"

Jim rose, and kicked the scattered ends of a log toward the flame.

"I've not got much use for Hazzard," he observed, frowning.

Babcock gave a surprised and vacant laugh.

"Gosh! I thought all you people were good friends!"

"Hazzard's an ass," observed Jim irritably. "There are some things that
aren't any too becoming to college kids--however, you can forgive them!
But when it comes to an ass like Hazzard chasing to every beauty show,
and taking good little girls to supper--"

"Alice don't care a whoop what he does," Babcock remarked hastily.

"Yes, so of course that makes everything all right," Jim said
ironically. But Mr. Babcock was in no mood to be critical of tones.

"Sure it does!" he agreed contentedly. And when Jim had disgustedly
departed, he remained still staring into the fire, a pleased smile upon
his face.

Julia spent the next day in bed fighting a threatened nervous breakdown,
and Jim came to see her at two o'clock, and they had a long and
memorable talk, with Jim's chair drawn close to the couch, and the
girl's lax hand in his own. She had not slept all night, she told him,
and he suspected that she had spent much of the long vigil in tears.
Tears came again as she begged a hundred times to set him free, but he
quieted her at last, and the old tragedy t