ses ways and means. Love, self respect--these
she considers quite negligible."

She protested.

"Not all girls--only some girls. They are foolish virgins who leave
their lamps untrimmed. They sow folly to-day only to reap unhappiness
to-morrow."

He said nothing and for a few moments they both stood there in the
increasing darkness. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, his voice
broken by emotion, he turned to her and said:

"I am tired of being alone. I have met the woman with whom I could be
happy, the woman who can help me to do big things. Helen, I want you
to be my wife."

She made no answer. She felt herself growing pale. A strange tremor
passed through her entire body.

He came closer and took her unresisting hand.

"Helen," he whispered, "I want you for my wife."

Still no reply, but her small delicate hand remained clasped in his
big, strong one, and gradually he drew her toward him until she was so
close in his embrace that he could feel her panting breath on his cheek.

A strange thrill passed through him as he came in contact with her
soft, yielding body. She never wore corsets, preferring the clinging
Grecian style of gowns that showed graceful lines and left the figure
free, and her form, slender yet firm and delicately chiseled like that
of some sculptured goddess, had none of that voluptuous grossness which
mars the symmetry of many women, otherwise beautiful.

As she nestled there, pale and trembling in his strong arms, he did not
dare move, for fear that he might unwittingly injure a being so frail
and delicate. All his life Kenneth had lived a clean life. He had not
led the riotous, licentious kind of existence which some men of his
means and opportunities think necessary to their comfort. He had never
been a libertine. He had respected women; indeed, had rather avoided
them.

But if a man, busily engaged in the battle of life, his mind always
engrossed in serious affairs, succeeds in keeping natural instincts
under control there comes a day when nature asserts herself, when his
manhood demands the satisfaction of legitimate cravings. This bachelor
who had lived a secluded, hermit-like kind of existence till he was
thirty was suddenly and violently awakened to the fact that he was made
of flesh and blood as are other men. This slim girl with her sweet
ways, her pretty face, her ready wit, had completely vanquished him,
and not alone did she satisfy him mentally, she also