loved beauty--not a plan of
life. He was interested in an artistic career, not in the founding of a
family. Girlhood--the beauty of youth--was artistic, hence he craved it.

Angela's mental and emotional composition was stable. She had learned to
believe from childhood that marriage was a fixed thing. She believed in
one life and one love. When you found that, every other relationship
which did not minister to it was ended. If children came, very good; if
not, very good; marriage was permanent anyhow. And if you did not marry
happily it was nevertheless your duty to endure and suffer for whatever
good might remain. You might suffer badly in such a union, but it was
dangerous and disgraceful to break it. If you could not stand it any
more, your life was a failure.

Of course, Eugene did not know what he was trifling with. He had no
conception of the nature of the relationship he was building up. He went
on blindly dreaming of this girl as an ideal, and anticipating eventual
marriage with her. When that would be, he had no idea, for though his
salary had been raised at Christmas he was getting only eighteen dollars
a week; but he deemed it would come within a reasonable time.

Meanwhile, his visits to Ruby had brought the inevitable result. The
very nature of the situation seemed to compel it. She was young,
brimming over with a love of adventure, admiring youth and strength in
men. Eugene, with his pale face, which had just a touch of melancholy
about it, his sex magnetism, his love of beauty, appealed to her.
Uncurbed passion was perhaps uppermost to begin with; very shortly it
was confounded with affection, for this girl could love. She was sweet,
good natured, ignorant of life from many points of view. Eugene
represented the most dramatic imagination she had yet seen. She
described to him the character of her foster parents, told how simple
they were and how she could do about as she pleased. They did not know
that she posed in the nude. She confided to him her particular
friendship for certain artists, denying any present intimacies. She
admitted them in the past, but asserted that they were bygones. Eugene
really did not believe this. He suspected her of meeting other
approaches in the spirit in which she had met his own. It aroused his
jealousy, and he wished at once that she were not a model. He said as
much and she laughed. She knew he would act like that, it was the first
proof of real, definite interest in h