to regard it with equal seriousness. He drew into
himself,--closed up, as it were,--no longer discussed it. I was hurt.
And when we came home he kept on in business--he still had his father's
affairs to look after--but he had a little workroom at the top of the
house where he used to go in the afternoon . . . .

"It was a question which one of us should be warped,--which personality
should be annihilated, so to speak, and I was the stronger. And as I
look back, Mr. Hodder, what occurred seems to me absolutely inevitable,
given the ingredients, as inevitable as a chemical process. We were both
striving against each other, and I won--at a tremendous cost. The
conflict, one might say, was subconscious, instinctive rather than
deliberate. My attitude forced him back into business, although we had
enough to live on very comfortably, and then the scale of life began to
increase, luxuries formerly unthought of seemed to become necessities.
And while it was still afar off I saw a great wave rolling toward us, the
wave of that new prosperity which threatened to submerge us, and I seized
the buoy fate had placed in our hands,--or rather, by suggestion, I
induced my husband to seize it--his name.

"I recognized the genius, the future of Eldon Parr at a time when he was
not yet independent and supreme, when association with a Constable meant
much to him. Mr. Parr made us, as the saying goes. Needless to say;
money has not brought happiness, but a host of hard, false ambitions
which culminated in Gertrude's marriage with Victor Warren. I set my
heart on the match, helped it in every, way, and until now nothing but
sorrow has come of it. But my point--is this,--I see so clearly, now
that it is too late, that two excellent persons may demoralize each other
if they are ill-mated. It may be possible that I had the germs of false
ambition in me when I was a girl, yet I was conscious only of the ideal
which is in most women's hearts . . . .

"You must not think that I have laid my soul bare in the hope of changing
your mind in regard to Gertrude. I recognize clearly, now, that that is
impossible. Oh, I know you do not so misjudge me," she added, reading
his quick protest in his face.

"Indeed, I cannot analyze my reasons for telling you something of which I
have never spoken to any one else."

Mrs. Constable regarded him fixedly. "You are the strongest reason.
You have somehow drawn it out of me . . . . And I suppose I wish some
one