and you
limit the risks of disappointment--a piece of wisdom easier to enunciate
than to apply."

Lean, graceful, commanding under the cloak of his present gentle humour,
Charles Verity sat down on the faded red cushion beside Damaris, and laid
one arm along the window-ledge behind her. He did not touch her; being
careful in the matter of caresses, reverent of her person, chary of
claiming parental privileges unasked.

"In the making of Henrietta Frayling," he went on, "by some accident soul
was left out. She hasn't any. She does not know it. Let us hope she never
will know it, for it is too late now for the omission to be rectified."

"Are you laughing at me?" Damaris asked, still stubborn, though his
presence enclosed her with an at once assuaging and authoritative charm.

"Not in the least. I speak that which I soberly believe. Just as some
ill-starred human creatures are born physically or mentally
defective--deformed or idiots--so may they be born spiritually
defective. Why not? My reason offers no scientific or moral objection to
such a belief. In other respects she is conspicuously perfect. But,
verily, she has no soul; and the qualities which--for happiness or
misery--draw their life from the soul, she does not possess. Therefore
she sparkles, lovely and chill as frost. Is as astute as she is cold at
heart; and can, when it suits her purpose, be both false and cruel
without any subsequent prickings of remorse. But this very coldness and
astuteness save her from misdeeds of the coarser kind. Treacherous she
has been, and, for aught I know, may on occasions still be. But, though
temptation has pretty freely crossed her path, she has never been other
than virtuous. She is a good woman--in the accepted, the popular sense of
the word."

Silence stole down upon the room. Damaris remained motionless, leaning
forward gathered close into herself, her hands still heavy in her lap.
Could she accept this statement as comfort, or must she bow under it
as rebuke?

"Why," she asked at last huskily--the tears were no longer upon her
cheeks but queerly in her throat, impeding utterance, "do you tell me
these things?"

"To prevent you beholding lying visions, my dear, or dreaming lying
dreams of what might very well have been but--God be thanked--never has
been--never was.--Think a minute--remember--look."

And once more Damaris felt the breath of high romance and touched drama
of rare quality, with those same two figu