were suspicious cracklings in the grass as of bugs
stirring. A duck quacked somewhere feebly. The bell of the family cow
tinkled somewhere over near the water of the little stream. He saw the
great dipper in the sky, Sirius, Canopus, the vast galaxy of the Milky
Way.

"What is life anyway?" he asked himself. "What is the human body? What
produces passion? Here we are for a few years surging with a fever of
longing and then we burn out and die." He thought of some lines he might
write, of pictures he might paint. All the while, reproduced before his
mind's eye like a cinematograph, were views of Angela as she had been
tonight in his arms, on her knees. He had seen her true form. He had
held her in his arms. He had voluntarily resigned her charms for
tonight; anyhow, no harm had come. It never should.

CHAPTER XIX

It would be hard to say in what respect, if any, the experiences of this
particular night altered Eugene's opinion of Angela. He was inclined to
like her better for what he would have called her humanness. Thus
frankly to confess her weakness and inability to save herself was
splendid. That he was given the chance to do a noble deed was fortunate
and uplifting. He knew now that he could take her if he wished, but once
calm again he resolved to be fair and not to insist. He could wait.

The state of Angela's mind, on the contrary, once she had come out of
her paroxysm and gained the privacy of her own room, or rather the room
she shared with Marietta at the other extreme of the house, was
pitiable. She had for so long considered herself an estimable and
virtuous girl. There was in her just a faint trace of prudery which
might readily have led to an unhappy old maid existence for her if
Eugene, with his superiority, or non-understanding, or indifference to
conventional theories and to old-maidish feelings, had not come along
and with his customary blindness to material prosperity and age
limitations, seized upon and made love to her. He had filled her brain
with a whirlwind of notions hitherto unfamiliar to her world and set
himself up in her brain as a law unto himself. He was not like other
men--she could see that. He was superior to them. He might not make much
money, being an artist, but he could make other things which to her
seemed more desirable. Fame, beautiful pictures, notable friends, were
not these things far superior to money? She had had little enough money
in all conscience, and if Euge