s were full of evil promise, for, as time went on,
Mildred Carr fell headlong in love with him. There was no particular
reason why she should have done so. She might have had scores of men,
handsomer, cleverer, more distinguished, for the asking, or, rather,
for the waiting to be asked. Beyond a certain ability of mind, a
taking manner, and a sympathetic, thoughtful face, with that tinge of
melancholy upon it which women sometimes find dangerously interesting,
there was nothing so remarkable about Arthur that a woman possessing
her manifold attractions and opportunities, should, unsought and
without inquiry, lavish her affection upon him. There is only one
satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon, which, indeed, is a very
common one, and that is, that he was her fate, the one man whom she
was to love in the world, for no woman worth the name ever _loves_
two, however many she may happen to marry. For this curious difference
would appear to exist between the sexes. The man can attach himself,
though in varying degree, to several women in the course of a
lifetime, whilst the woman, the true, pure-hearted woman, cannot so
adapt her best affection. Once given, like the law of the Medes and
Persians, it altereth not.

Mildred felt, when her eyes first met Arthur's in Donald Currie's
office, that this man was for her different from all other men, though
she did not put the thought in words even to herself. And from that
hour till she embarked on board the boat he was continually in her
mind, a fact which so irritated her that she nearly missed the steamer
on purpose, only changing her mind at the last moment. And then, when
she had helped him to carry Miss Terry to her cabin, their hands had
accidentally met, and the contact had sent a thrill through her frame
such as she had never felt before. The next development that she could
trace was her jealousy of the black-eyed girl whom she saw him helping
about the deck, and her consequent rudeness.

Up to her present age, Mildred Carr had never known a single touch of
love: she had not even felt particularly interested in her numerous
admirers, but now this marble Galatea had by some freak of fate found
a woman's heart, awkwardly enough, without the semblance of a
supplication on the part of him whom she destined to play Pygmalion.
And, when she examined herself by the light of the flame thus newly
kindled, she shrank back dismayed, like one who peeps over the crater
of a volc