d she come? For all the curiosity she could not help but feel, she
steeled herself in the pride of those who are without pride, and trembled
in the inner room like a maid on the first caress of a lover. If Mrs.
Eppingwell suffered going up the hill, she too suffered, lying face
downward on the bed, dry-eyed, dry-mouthed, dumb.

Mrs. Eppingwell's knowledge of human nature was great. She aimed at
universality. She had found it easy to step from the civilized and
contemplate things from the barbaric aspect. She could comprehend
certain primal and analogous characteristics in a hungry wolf-dog or a
starving man, and predicate lines of action to be pursued by either under
like conditions. To her, a woman was a woman, whether garbed in purple
or the rags of the gutter; Freda was a woman. She would not have been
surprised had she been taken into the dancer's cabin and encountered on
common ground; nor surprised had she been taken in and flaunted in
prideless arrogance. But to be treated as she had been treated, was
unexpected and disappointing. Ergo, she had not caught Freda's point of
view. And this was good. There are some points of view which cannot be
gained save through much travail and personal crucifixion, and it were
well for the world that its Mrs. Eppingwells should, in certain ways,
fall short of universality. One cannot understand defilement without
laying hands to pitch, which is very sticky, while there be plenty
willing to undertake the experiment. All of which is of small concern,
beyond the fact that it gave Mrs. Eppingwell ground for grievance, and
bred for her a greater love in the Greek girl's heart.

III

And in this way things went along for a month,--Mrs. Eppingwell striving
to withhold the man from the Greek dancer's blandishments against the
time of Flossie's coming; Flossie lessening the miles each day on the
dreary trail; Freda pitting her strength against the model-woman; the
model-woman straining every nerve to land the prize; and the man moving
through it all like a flying shuttle, very proud of himself, whom he
believed to be a second Don Juan.

It was nobody's fault except the man's that Loraine Lisznayi at last
landed him. The way of a man with a maid may be too wonderful to know,
but the way of a woman with a man passeth all conception; whence the
prophet were indeed unwise who would dare forecast Floyd Vanderlip's
course twenty-four hours in advance. Perhaps the model-