ed down beside me in the car--and she does snuggle
the best of any girl I ever knew--I told her everything, not forgetting
the part where I wrenched the gun away from Woods.

"Goodness, Bupps! I bet you were scared," she commented, her eyes
twinkling.

"Frankly, I didn't know what I was doing, or I would never have had the
nerve," I laughed. "But, lord! I feel sorry for Jim."

Mary's face clouded over.

"So do I, Bupps, but any one could have seen it coming. Jim was too
good to her. As much as I like Helen, I will say that the only kind of
husband she deserves is a brute who would beat her. That's the only
kind she can love. I was with her the night before her wedding, and
she confessed then that if Jim were only cruel or indifferent to her,
just once, she thought she could love him to death. The only reason
Helen cares for you and me, was because we never paid any particular
attention to her when she acted up and pouted. That is why she is mad
about Frank Woods. When he came to Eastbrook, he treated her as though
she didn't exist."

"And if Jim were cruel to her now, do you think she would go back to
him?" I asked.

Mary shook her head. "No, it's different now. If Jim were cruel to
her, she would probably hate him all the more for it."

"Proving the incomprehensibility of woman," I jeered.

"Proving the flumdability of flapdoodle," Mary responded. "If you men
only put one little thought into giving a woman what she wants, instead
of giving her what you think she ought to want; if you kept as
up-to-date in your love-making as you do in your law practise, women
wouldn't be the incomprehensible riddle you always make them out to be."

"Well, why don't you tell us what you want?" I asked.

"Silly! That would spoil it all, don't you see? Besides we aren't
sure just what we want ourselves."

My spirits, which had risen considerably during our conversation,
dropped with a slump when Jim's big house loomed up ahead. Already,
something of the unhappiness within seemed to have added a more somber
touch to the outside. Have you noticed how you can tell from the face
of a house what kind of life the inhabitants lead? Happiness or
misery, health or sickness, riches or poverty all show as though the
walls were saturated from the admixture of life within.

I sent Mary up-stairs to see Helen, while I went into the drawing-room
in search of Jim, but there was no one there except Wicks, the butler,
who w