proportions. There was annoyance in his
smile as he said:

"Shall I send her up to see you? You might find it amusing, and maybe
you could do something for her."

Josephine debated. "Yes," she finally said. "I wish you would send
her--" with a little sarcasm--"if you can spare her for an hour or so."

"Don't make it longer than that," laughed he. "Everything will stop
while she's gone."

It pleased him, in a way, this discovery that Josephine had such a
common, commonplace weakness as jealousy. But it also took away
something from his high esteem for her--an esteem born of the lover's
idealizings; for, while he was not of the kind of men who are on their
knees before women, he did have a deep respect for Josephine,
incarnation of all the material things that dazzled him--a respect with
something of the reverential in it, and something of awe--more than he
would have admitted to himself. To-day, as of old, the image-makers are
as sincere worshipers as visit the shrines. In our prostrations and
genuflections in the temple we do not discriminate against the idols we
ourselves have manufactured; on the contrary, them we worship with
peculiar gusto. Norman knew his gods were frauds, that their divine
qualities were of the earth earthy. But he served them, and what most
appealed to him in Josephine was that she incorporated about all their
divine qualities.

He and his sister went home together. Her first remark in the auto was:
"What were you and Josie quarreling about?"

"Quarreling?" inquired he in honest surprise.

"I looked at her through my glasses and saw that the was all upset--and
you, too."

"This is too ridiculous," cried he.

"She looked--jealous."

"Nonsense! What an imagination you have!"

"I saw what I saw," Ursula maintained. "Well, I suppose she has heard
something--something recent. I thought you had sworn off, Fred. But I
might have known."

Norman was angry. He wondered at his own exasperation, out of all
proportion to any apparent provoking cause. And it was most unusual for
him to feel temper, all but unprecedented for him to show it, no matter
how strong the temptation.

"It's a good idea, to make her jealous," pursued his sister. "Nothing
like jealousy to stimulate interest."

"Josephine is not that sort of woman."

"You know better. All women are that sort. All men, too. Of course, some
men and women grow angry and go away when they get jealous while others
stick closer. So one h