howed to him at the moment in a singularly new and vivid light. "I know
nothing of his life except that he has had courage," he thought again,
"yet because of this one thing--and because, too, of a quality which I
recognise, though I cannot name it, I would trust him sooner than any
man or woman whom I know--sooner, by Jove, than I would trust myself."
Among his many generous traits was the ability to appreciate keenly
where he could not follow, to apprehend almost instinctively the finer
attributes of the spirit, and though he himself preferred the pleasures
of the senses to the vaguer comforts of philosophy, he was not without a
profound admiration for the man who, as he believed, had deliberately
chosen to forfeit the joy of life. Roger Adams impressed him to-night as
a peculiarly happy man--not with the hectic happiness he himself had
sought--but with a secure, a reposeful, an indestructible
possession--the happiness which comes not through the illusion of
desire, but which is bound up in the peace of an eternal reconciliation.
The man beyond the carnations, he knew by an intuition surer than
knowledge, had never even for an hour dallied in the primrose path where
his own pursuit of delight had begun and ended--he could not imagine
Adams' control yielding to a fleeting impulse of passion--yet had not
the very power he recognised come to his friend in the stony places
through which he had been constrained to walk with God? Sitting there
Kemper was brought suddenly for the first time in his life face to face
with the profoundest truth that lies hidden in the deeps of
knowledge--that renunciation may become the richest experience in the
consciousness of man; that to renounce for the sake of goodness is not
merely to refrain from sin but to achieve virtue; and that he who gives
up his happiness and is still happy has gained not only the beauty of
his forfeited joys, but has added to his own a strength that is equal to
the strength of his unfulfilled desire. Kemper had always believed
himself strong because he had attained, yet he knew now that Adams was
stronger than he inasmuch as he had gone without for the sake of his own
soul.

From his reflections, which were dimly like these, Kemper came back
abruptly to his memory of Laura. "Do you know," he said, speaking to
himself rather than to his companion, "that she really interests me very
much indeed."

"Well, she is interesting," laughed Adams, "in spite of the fact th