d, you see, it is because I feel that way."

"Sad?" he echoed, bewildered. "Why should you be sad now--when it is all
going to be straightened out--when--"

"Well, don't you think it's pretty sad--the part that can't ever be
straightened out?"

Unexpectedly she got up, and walked slowly away, a disconcerting trick
she had; wandered about the room, looking about her something like a
stranger in a picture gallery; touching a bowl of flowers here, there
setting a book to rights; and West, rising too, following her sombrely
with his eyes, had never wanted her so much in all his life.

Presently she returned to him; asked him to sit down again; and, still
standing herself, began speaking in a quiet kind voice which,
nevertheless, rang ominously in his ears from her first word.

"I remember," said Sharlee, "when I was a very little girl, not more
than twelve years old, I think, I first heard about you--about Charles
Gardiner West. You were hardly grown then, but already people were
talking about you. I don't remember now, of course, just what they said,
but it must have been something very splendid, for I remember the sort
of picture I got. I have always liked for men to be very clean and
high-minded--I think because my father was that sort of man. I have put
that above intellect, and abilities, and what would be called
attractions; and so what they said about you made a great impression on
me. You know how very young girls are--how they like to have the figure
of a prince to spin their little romances around ... and so I took you
for mine. You were my knight without fear and without reproach ... Sir
Galahad. When I was sixteen, I used to pass you in the street and wonder
if you didn't hear my heart thumping. You never looked at me; you
hadn't any idea who I was. And that is a big and fine thing, I think--to
be the hero of somebody you don't even know by name ... though of course
not so big and fine as to be the hero of somebody who knows you very
well. And you were that to me, too. When I grew up and came to know you,
I still kept you on that pedestal you never saw. I measured you by the
picture I had carried for so many years, and I was not disappointed. All
that my little girl's fancy had painted you, you seemed to be. I look
back now over the last few years of my life, and so much that I have
liked most--that has been dearest--has centred about you. Yes, more than
once I have been quite sure that I was in love with yo