generous,
sympathetic and a splendid musician. Norman worshiped her. She was
older than he and without the occasional strain of flippancy which so
maddened his father.

Norman and Ann and I had traversed the whole length of the Mississippi
to New Orleans on a raft and had traveled thence to this recently
inherited Adirondack tract of Norman's to rest.

"Grant," he said one night after Ann had gone to bed, "you've more
brains and brawn and breeding than any man I know, and you've splendid
health."

Naturally enough, I flushed.

Norman narrowed his handsome, impudent eyes and regarded me intently.

"And you're sufficiently clear-cut and good-looking," he said
thoughtfully, "for the purpose. Not so handsome as Ann to be sure, but
Ann's an exceptionally beautiful woman."

I was utterly at a loss to understand his reference to a purpose and
said so. He laughed and shrugged and enlightened me.

"My dear fellow," he said in answer to my stammered suggestion that
marriage was simpler and less fraught with perilous possibilities, "Ann
and I are not in the least hoodwinked by marriage. It has enervated
the whole race of womankind and led to their complete economic
dependence upon a polygamous sex who abuse the trust. Now Ann believes
firmly in the holiness of maternity, but she flatly refuses to take
upon herself the responsibility of an unwelcome tie. In this, as in
everything, I cordially endorse her views. Ann is past the callow age.
She has refused a number of men who were conspicuously her inferiors,
though Dad has stormed a bit. Now you are the one man whom I consider
her physical and mental equal, the one man to whom I may talk in this
manner without fear of bigoted misunderstanding, but--while Ann's
friendship for you is warm and wholly sincere--she doesn't love you.
If she did," said my impudent young friend, "she'd likely shrug away
her aversion to marital custom and marry you before you were well aware
of it. As it is, she declines to sacrifice the maternal inheritance of
her sex and she refuses to marry. And there you are!"

Looking back now after five years of readjustment and metamorphosis, I
marvel at the cool philosophy with which two adventurous young
scapegraces settled the question of a little lad's unconventional birth.

I pass over now the heartbroken reproaches of Ann's father when my son
was born. We told him the truth and he could not understand. He
looked through the eyes of the w