tistic
types, which suspect without education, nearly all the subtleties of the
world, and burst forth full winged and beautiful, but oh, so fragile,
like a butterfly from its chrysalis, the radiance of morning upon its
body. Eugene did not see her for a long time after he met Mrs. Dale, but
when he did, he was greatly impressed with her beauty.

Life sometimes builds an enigma out of common clay, and with a look from
a twelve-year-old girl, sets a Dante singing. It can make a god of a
bull, a divinity of an ibis, or a beetle, set up a golden calf to be
worshipped of the multitude. Paradox! Paradox! In this case an immature
and yet nearly perfect body held a seemingly poetic and yet utterly
nebulous appreciation of life--a body so youthful, a soul so fumbling
that one would ask, How should tragedy lurk in form like this?

A fool?

Not quite, yet so nebulous, so much a dreamer that difficulty might
readily follow in the wake of any thoughtless deed.

As a matter of fact, favored as she was by nature and fortune, her very
presence was dangerous--provocative, without thought of being so. If a
true artist had painted her, synthesizing her spirit with her body, he
might have done so showing her standing erect on a mountain top, her
limbs outlined amidst fluttering draperies against the wind, her eyes
fixed on distant heights, or a falling star. Out of mystery into mystery
again, so she came and went. Her mind was not unlike a cloud of mist
through which the morning sun is endeavoring to break, irradiating all
with its flushes of pink and gold. Again it was like those impearled
shells of the South Sea, without design yet suggestive of all
perfections and all beauties. Dreams! dreams!--of clouds, sunsets,
colors, sounds which a too articulate world would do its best later to
corrupt. What Dante saw in Beatrice, what Abelard saw in Heloise, Romeo
in Juliet, so some wondering swain could have seen in her--and suffered
a like fate.

Eugene encountered Mrs. Dale at a house party on Long Island one
Saturday afternoon, and their friendship began at once. She was
introduced to him by Colfax, and because of the latter's brusque,
jesting spirit was under no illusions as to his social state.

"You needn't look at him closely," he observed gaily, "he's married."

"That simply makes him all the more interesting," she rippled, and
extended her hand.

Eugene took it. "I'm glad a poor married man can find shelter
somewhere," he sai