d smilingly.

Aline rode in silence, her stricken face full of trouble. How could
she, from her glass house, throw stones at a loveless marriage? But
this was different from her own case! Nobody was worthy to marry her
hero without giving the best a woman had to give. If she were a girl--a
sudden tide of color swept her face; a wild, delirious tingle of joy
flooded her veins--oh, if she were a girl, what a wealth of love could
she give him! Clarity of vision had come to her in a blinding flash.
Untutored of life, the knowledge of its meaning had struck home of the
suddenest. She knew her heart now that it was too late; knew that she
could never be indifferent to what concerned Waring Ridgway.

Aline caught at the courage behind her childishness, and accomplished
her congratulations "You will be happy, I am sure. He is good."

"Goodness does not impress me as his most outstanding quality," smiled
Miss Balfour.

"No, one never feels it emphasized. He is too He is too free of
selfishness to make much of his goodness. But one can't help feeling it
in everything he does and says."

"Does Mr. Harley agree with you? Does he feel it?"

"I don't think Mr. Harley understands him. I can't help thinking that
he is prejudiced." She was becoming mistress of her voice and color
again.

"And you are not?"

"Perhaps I am. In my thought of him he would still be good, even if he
had done all the bad things his enemies accuse him of."

Virginia gave her up. This idealized interpretation of her betrothed
was not the one she had, but for Aline it might be the true one. At
least, she could not disparage him very consistently under the
circumstances.

"Isn't there a philosophy current that we find in people what we look
for in them? Perhaps that is why you and Mr. Harley read in Mr. Ridgway
men so diverse as you do. It is not impossible you are both right and
both wrong. Heaven knows, I suppose. At least, we poor mortals fog
around enough when we sit in judgment." And Virginia shrugged the
matter from her careless shoulders.

But Aline seemed to have a difficulty in getting away from the subject.
"And you--what do you read?" she asked timidly.

"Sometimes one thing and sometimes another. To-day I see him as a
living refutation of all the copy-book rules to success. He shatters
the maxims with a touch-and-go manner that is fascinating in its
immorality. A gambler, a plunger, an adventurer, he wins when a
careful, honest business