r corduroy
of her dress. There was a striking simplicity about the things she wore
which gave her a distinctive air. Her clothes were seldom fashionable
but always exceedingly becoming, for she saw herself as a whole and
arrayed herself as a decorative composition from head to foot, with a
sense of fitness in regard to self and life.

To such a nature as Eugene's, an intelligent, artistic, self-regulating
and self-poised human being was always intensely magnetic and
gratifying. He turned to the capable person as naturally as a flower
turns toward the light, finding a joy in contemplating the completeness
and sufficiency of such a being. To have ideas of your own seemed to him
a marvellous thing. To be able definitely to formulate your thoughts and
reach positive and satisfying conclusions was a great and beautiful
thing. From such personalities Eugene drank admiringly until his thirst
was satiated--then he would turn away. If his thirst for what they had
to give returned, he might come back--not otherwise.

Hitherto all his relationships with personages of this quality had been
confined to the male sex, for he had not known any women of distinction.
Beginning with Temple Boyle, instructor in the life class in Chicago,
and Vincent Beers, instructor in the illustration class, he had
encountered successively Jerry Mathews, Mitchell Goldfarb, Peter McHugh,
David Smite and Jotham Blue, all men of intense personal feeling and
convictions and men who had impressed him greatly. Now he was to
encounter for the first time some forceful, really exceptional women of
the same calibre. Stella Appleton, Margaret Duff, Ruby Kenny and Angela
Blue were charming girls in their way, but they did not think for
themselves. They were not organized, self-directed, self-controlled
personalities in the way that Miriam Finch was. She would have
recognized herself at once as being infinitely superior intellectually
and artistically to any or all of them, while entertaining at the same
time a sympathetic, appreciative understanding of their beauty, fitness,
equality of value in the social scheme. She was a student of life, a
critic of emotions and understanding, with keen appreciative
intelligence, and yet longing intensely for just what Stella and
Margaret and Ruby and even Angela had--youth, beauty, interest for men,
the power or magnetism or charm of face and form to compel the impetuous
passion of a lover. She wanted to be loved by someone who