have surveyed the ablest person he
knew. Here was a woman, he saw, who could and would command the utmost
reaches of his soul in every direction. If he interested her at all, he
would need them all. The eyes of her were at once so elusive, so
direct, so friendly, so cool and keen. "You will have to be
interesting, indeed, to interest me," they seemed to say; and yet they
were by no means averse, apparently, to a hearty camaraderie. That
nose-wrinkling smile said as much. Here was by no means a Stephanie
Platow, nor yet a Rita Sohlberg. He could not assume her as he had
Ella Hubby, or Florence Cochrane, or Cecily Haguenin. Here was an iron
individuality with a soul for romance and art and philosophy and life.
He could not take her as he had those others. And yet Berenice was
really beginning to think more than a little about Cowperwood. He must
be an extraordinary man; her mother said so, and the newspapers were
always mentioning his name and noting his movements.

A little later, at Southampton, whither she and her mother had gone,
they met again. Together with a young man by the name of Greanelle,
Cowperwood and Berenice had gone into the sea to bathe. It was a
wonderful afternoon.

To the east and south and west spread the sea, a crinkling floor of
blue, and to their left, as they faced it, was a lovely outward-curving
shore of tawny sand. Studying Berenice in blue-silk bathing costume
and shoes, Cowperwood had been stung by the wonder of passing life--how
youth comes in, ever fresh and fresh, and age goes out. Here he was,
long crowded years of conflict and experience behind him, and yet this
twenty-year-old girl, with her incisive mind and keen tastes, was
apparently as wise in matters of general import as himself. He could
find no flaw in her armor in those matters which they could discuss.
Her knowledge and comments were so ripe and sane, despite a tendency to
pose a little, which was quite within her rights. Because Greanelle
had bored her a little she had shunted him off and was amusing herself
talking to Cowperwood, who fascinated her by his compact individuality.

"Do you know," she confided to him, on this occasion, "I get so very
tired of young men sometimes. They can be so inane. I do declare,
they are nothing more than shoes and ties and socks and canes strung
together in some unimaginable way. Vaughn Greanelle is for all the
world like a perambulating manikin to-day. He is just an Engl