dugout or as the beast of the field. The
girl opened a door; a bright light streamed into the dim hallway.

"Father!" she called. "Here's Mr. Norman."

Norman saw, beyond the exquisite profile of the girl's head and figure,
a lean tallish old man, dark and gray, whose expression proclaimed him
at first glance no more in touch with the affairs of active life in the
world than had he been an inhabitant of Mars.

Mr. Hallowell gave his caller a polite glance and handshake--evidence of
merest surface interest in him, of amiable patience with an intruder.
Norman saw in the neatness of his clothing and linen further proof of
the girl's loving care. For no such abstracted personality as this would
ever bother about such things for himself. These details, however,
detained Norman only for a moment. In the presence of Hallowell it was
impossible not to concentrate upon him.

As we grow older what we are inside, the kind of thoughts we admit as
our intimates, appears ever more strongly in the countenance. This had
often struck Norman, observing the men of importance about him, noting
how as they aged the look of respectability, of intellectual
distinction, became a thinner and ever thinner veneer over the
selfishness and greediness, the vanity and sensuality and falsehood. But
never before had he been so deeply impressed by its truth. Evidently
Hallowell during most of his fifty-five or sixty years had lived the
purely intellectual life. The result was a look of spiritual beauty, the
look of the soul living in the high mountain, with serenity and vast
views constantly before it. Such a face fills with awe the ordinary
follower of the petty life of the world if he have the brains to know or
to suspect the ultimate truth about existence. It filled Norman with
awe. He hastily turned his eyes upon the girl--and once more into his
face came the resolute, intense, white-hot expression of a man doggedly
set upon an earthy purpose.

There was an embarrassed silence. Then the girl said, "Show him the
worms, father."

Mr. Hallowell smiled. "My little girl thinks no one has seen that sort
of thing," said he. "I can't make her believe it is one of the
commonplaces."

"You've never had anyone here more ignorant than I, sir," said Norman.
"The only claim on your courtesy I can make is that I'm interested and
that I perhaps know enough in a general way to appreciate."

Hallowell waved his hand toward a row of large glass bottles on on