honest, and being honest, he could summon
that most sterling of all strength, a manly self-respect. He had
thought himself strong, but had found himself weak. The love of money,
which at first had seemed so gross, at last had conquered him. This
thought did not sting him now; it softened him, made him look with a
more forgiving eye upon tempted human nature. But was it money that
had tempted him to turn from a purpose so resolutely formed? Had not
Witherspoon's argument and Ellen's persuasion left him determined to
reserve one refuge for his mind--one closet wherein he could hang the
cast-off garment of real self? Then it was the appeal of that gentle
woman whom he called mother; it was not money. But after yielding to
the mother he had found himself without a prop, and at last he had
felt a contempt for a moderate income and had boasted to himself that
he could buy a man. And for this he reproached himself. How grim was
that something known as fate, how mockingly did it play with the
children of men, and in that mockery how cold a justice! But he should
be free, and that thought thrilled him.

In the afternoon he went over to the North Side, and along a modest
street he walked, looking at the houses as if hunting for a number. He
went up a short flight of wooden steps and rang the bell of the second
flat. The hall door was open, and a moment later he saw Miss Drury at
the head of the stairs.

"Why, is that you, Mr. Witherspoon?"

"Yes; may I come up?"

"What a question! Of course you may, especially as I am as lonesome
as I can be."

He was shown into a neat sitting-room, where a canary bird "fluttered"
his hanging cage up and down. A rose was pinned on one of the white
curtains. The room was warmed by a stove, and through the isinglass
the playful flame could be seen. She brought a "tidied" rocking-chair,
and smiling in her welcome, said that as this was his first visit, she
must make him comfortable. "Don't you see," she added, "that you
constantly make me forget that I am working for you?"

"And don't you know," he answered, "that you are most pleasing when
you do forget it? But I am to infer that you wouldn't give me the
rocking-chair if you didn't forget that you were working for me?"

"You must infer nothing," she said. "But am I most pleasing when I
forget? Then I will not remember again. It is a woman's duty to be
pleasing; and her advantage, too, for when she ceases to please she
loses many of her pri