ween him and Mrs. Farron's estimate of him. He seemed to sink
back into the general human species. If he had felt inclined to detail
his own qualities, he could not have thought of one. There was a long
silence, while Adelaide sat with a look of docile teachableness upon her
expectant face.

At last Wayne stood up.

"It's no use, Mrs. Farron," he said "That question of yours can't be
answered. I believe she loves me. It's my bet against yours."

"I won't gamble with my child's future," she returned. "I did with my
own. Sit down again, Mr. Wayne. You have heard, I suppose, that I have
been married twice?"

"Yes." He sat down again reluctantly.

"I was Mathilde's age--a little older. I was more in love than she. And
if he had been asked the question I just asked you, he could have
answered it. He could have said: 'I have been a leader in a group in
which I was, an athlete, an oarsman, and the most superb physical
specimen of my race'--brought up, too, he might have added, in the same
traditions that I had had. Well, that wasn't enough, Mr. Wayne, and that
was a good deal. If my father had only made me wait, only given me time
to see that my choice was the choice of ignorance, that the man I thought
a hero was, oh, the most pitifully commonplace clay--Mathilde shan't make
my mistake."

Wayne's eyes lit up.

"But that's it," he said. "She wouldn't make your mistake. She'd choose
right. That's what I ought to have said. You spoke of Mathilde's spirit.
She has a feeling for the right thing. Some people have, and some people
are bound to choose wrong."

Adelaide laid her hand on her breast.

"You mean me?" she asked, too much interested to be angry.

He was too absorbed in his own interests to give his full
attention to hers.

"Yes," he answered. "I mean your principles of choice weren't right
ones--leaders of men, you know, and all that. It never works out.
Leaders of men are the ones who always cry on their wives' shoulders, and
the martinets at home are imposed on by every one else." He gave out this
dictum in passing: "But don't trouble about your responsibility in this,
Mrs. Farron. It's out of your hands. It's our chance, and Mathilde and I
mean to take it. I don't want to give you a warning, exactly, but--it's
going to go through."

She looked at him with large, terrified eyes. She was repeating, 'they
cry on their wives' shoulders,' or, he might have said, 'on the
shoulders of their trained nurses.' She