rveyed the familiar scene, the rushing, commonplace men,
the commonplace horses, the commonplace, ugly walls and signs, and for
an instant they lost substance, became as shadowy as drifting mist,
the men were of no more bulk than phantoms, the walls and pavements
but the effluvia of the commonplace perceiving mind. All were as
transitory as smoke, as illusionary as the opium-eater's mid-day
dream. What did it signify--this mad rush to get round a corner to
creep into a hole? Why should he trouble himself about one of the
millions of women, evanescent as butterflies, with which the earth
continually replenished its swarms of men?

He walked on, eager to return to his own little nest, to his books,
his easy-chair, his glowing fire. What folly to go out of his own
life, to profess accountability for the welfare of a girl whom he had
seen but a few hours in all his life. Why trouble to explain her case?
Was it worth while to dethrone Spencer in order to defend the action
of a child's disordered mind.

This mood gave way to one far less philosophical--he permitted himself
a moment of exultation over his youth. Science had not yet taken out
of him the nerves that leap to the touch of a woman's palm--the right
woman. Ten years' deep, patient, absorbing dissection of pathologic
tissue had not rendered the gloss and glow of a girl's cheek less
velvet-soft. On the contrary, the healthy, wholesome flesh, the
matured beauty of this mountain maid seemed of more worth than any
fame to be wrung from the niggard hands of the Royal Academy. The
absorption of the true scientist was completely broken up. "Love is
worth while," he said, in answer to himself, "and to serve others the
only solace in the end."

XI

DR. BRITT PAYS HIS DINNER-CALL

Kate had not returned, and he was glad of this, for it gave him time
in which to recover his normal serenity of mind. He met her at dinner
with an attempt at humor, but she was not to be deceived nor put off
from the main subject. He was forced to make instant report, which he
did, leaving out, however, all the deeply emotional passages. He fell
silent in the midst of this story--profoundly stirred by the memory of
Viola's confiding gesture as she leaned to him, awed by the essential
purity of the soul he perceived lying deep in her eyes. How blue, how
profound they seemed at the moment!

Kate, if she perceived his abstraction, ignored it. "Well, I hope you
agree with me now. Clarke i