ned
when we are our true selves--but have a bad habit of only too often not
being what we flatter ourselves is our true selves. Jane was growing
angry as she, away from Selma, resumed her normal place in the world
and her normal point of view. Davy Hull belonged to her; he had no
right to be hanging about another, anyway--especially an attractive
woman. Her anger was not lessened by Davy's retort. Said he:

"Her dress may have been the same. But her face wasn't--and her mind
wasn't. Those things are more difficult to change than a dress."

She was so angry that she did not take warning from this reminder that
Davy was by no means merely a tedious retailer of stale commonplaces.
She said with fine irony--and with no show of anger: "It is always a
shock to a lady to realize how coarse men are--how they don't
discriminate."

Davy laughed. "Women get their rank from men," said he coolly.

"In themselves they have none. That's the philosophy of the
peculiarity you've noted."

This truth, so galling to a lady, silenced Jane, made her bite her lips
with rage. "I beg your pardon," she finally said. "I didn't realize
that you were in love with Selma."

"Yes, I am in love with her," was Davy's astounding reply. "She's the
noblest and simplest creature I've ever met."

"You don't mean you want to marry her!" exclaimed Jane, so amazed that
she for the moment lost sight of her own personal interest in this
affair.

Davy looked at her sadly, and a little contemptuously.

"What a poor opinion at bottom you women--your sort of women--have of
woman," said he.

"What a poor opinion of men you mean," retorted she. "After a little
experience of them a girl--even a girl--learns that they are incapable
of any emotion that isn't gross."

"Don't be so ladylike, Jane," said Hull.

Miss Hastings was recovering control of herself. She took a new tack.
"You haven't asked her yet?"

"Hardly. This is the second time I've seen her. I suspected that she
was the woman for me the moment I saw her. To-day I confirmed my idea.
She is all that I thought--and more. And, Jane, I know that you
appreciate her, too."

Jane now saw that Davy was being thus abruptly and speedily confiding
because he had decided it was the best way out of his entanglement with
her. Behind his coolness she could see an uneasy watchfulness--the
fear that she might try to hold him. Up boiled her rage--the higher
because she knew that if there were