t her, there was never any
occasion for him to put himself out to be nice to her, because it was
always understood that she could never leave Aunt Kitty even for an
evening. This gave him a certain sense of security. With her he never
was forced to consider either the present or the future.

Last night it had been almost like meeting her for the first time
alone. It was as if in all these years he had known her only through
her photograph, as one knows friends of one's friends about whom one
has for long heard a great deal, without ever meeting them face to
face. From the moment he first saw her in the Place de l'Opera she had
made him conscious of her as, in another way, he had always been
conscious of Edhart. The latter, until his death, had always remained
in Monte's outer consciousness like a fixed point. Because he was so
permanent, so unchanging, he dominated the rest of Monte's schedule as
the north star does the mariner's course.

Each year began when Edhart bade him a smiling au revoir at the door of
the Hotel des Roses; and that same year did not end, but began again,
when the matter of ten or eleven months later Monte found Edhart still
at the door to greet him. So it was always possible, the year round,
to think of Edhart as ever standing by the door smilingly awaiting him.
This was very pleasant, and prevented Monte from getting really
lonesome, and consequently from getting old. It was only in the last
few weeks that he fully realized all that Edhart had done for him.

It was, in some ways, as if Edhart had come back to life again in
Marjory. He had felt it the moment she had smilingly confided in him;
he felt it still more when, after she bade him good-night, he had
turned back into the city, not feeling alone any more. Now it was as
if he were indebted to her for this morning walk, and for restoring to
him his springtime Paris. It was for these things that he had sent her
violets--because she had made him comfortable again. So, after all,
his act had been one, not of sentimentalism, but of just plain
gratitude.

Monte's objection to sentiment was not based upon any of the modern
schools of philosophy, which deplore it as a weakness. He took his
stand upon much simpler grounds: that, as far as he had been able to
observe, it did not make for content. It had been his fate to be
thrown in contact with a good deal of it in its most acute stages,
because the route he followed was unhappily t