ways remembered," she said, very gently, "and never forgotten
how nice you were to me at my coming-out party, when I was so scared
and young and all. I thought you were the most wonderful man in the
world, and had the most understanding and the most tact."

She laughed softly, but not mirthfully.

"That night," she said; "if you'd asked me to run away with you I'd
have done it like a shot."

"But tonight," I said, "if I so much as touched your hand, you'd turn
into an icicle, and send me about my business with a few disagreeable
truths to wear in my bonnet. And I think I know the reason. It's
because on that first night, even if I had been desperately in love
with you, I wouldn't have thought of asking you to run away with me,
whereas now I can conceive of making such a proposition to somebody
that I didn't even love two bits' worth--for no better reason than that
she was lovely to look at and that the night smelled of cedar."

"I've only been out seven years," said Evelyn; "seven years tonight."

"Many happy returns, Evelyn. I had no idea this was an anniversary."

"It doesn't seem possible," she went on, "for a man to change his whole
moral nature in seven years, and to boast about that change."

"I haven't changed and I didn't boast. If I ever knew what was right
and what was wrong, I still know. The only difference is that I used
to think it mattered a lot, and now I'm not so sure. I see good people
suffer, and wicked people triumph; and I don't think that everything is
for the best in this best of worlds; I think most things are decidedly
for the worst. Why should so many people be poor and sick and
uncomfortable? Why should so many men marry the wrong girls, so many
girls the wrong men? If we are suffering for our sins, well and good,
but what was the use of making us so pesky sinful! You won't, of
course, but most people come back at one with one's inability to
comprehend--they always say 'comprehend' the Great Design. As if they
themselves comprehended said Great Design to perfection. If there _is_
a Great Design, no human being understands a jot of it; that's certain.
Why be so sure then that something we don't understand, and which may
not even exist, is absolutely right and beautiful? Suppose it could be
proved to us that there was no Great Design, and no Great Designer,
that the world was the result of some blind, happy-go-lucky creative
force, what would we think of the world then, poor