le killed or were killed might some weeks ago have passed into
his continuous performance of human comedies and tragedies. But there
was a new element about this which shocked him to the foundation of his
nature, and the revulsion became more acute as he looked up into her
face smiling politely down at him.

He had watched her interest in Dale, and now guessed her depth of
disappointment when she were told how the mountaineer's career had gone
dashing into the black wall of ruin. But he had watched with a twinge of
jealousy which, as jealousy has the knack of doing, exaggerated both the
extent and kind of interest she may have felt.

Many opportunities had come to Brent, and it was not all his fault that
most of them had been neglected. His capacity for achievement was as an
arm perpetually carried in a sling; no one's fingers had untied the knot
and massaged the cramped muscles, nor had anyone's lips bidden him
strike the right sort of blow. His mother breathed his name when a
trained nurse had laid him down beside her on the bed; and that was the
only time he might have heard her voice. His father was a man so
threaded in the loom of finance that the rearing of a baby boy seemed
wasted energy for one of his activities. The governess whom he employed
to assume this duty came with recommendations; that was all--came with
recommendations. And the boy's days were without intelligent direction
of any kind.

The only trait in his character which this governess strongly developed,
was a desire to hide from every one his deepest and best impulses. Since
one day, when his four-year-old arms had clasped a homeless puppy hurt
by a passing wagon, and she had poked her finger and laughed at his
tears in order to keep his clothes from becoming worse soiled, his
generous side shrank back into itself and froze. Then he began to clasp
this newly bruised thing--a little boy's wounded nobility; so jealously
guarding it from the cruelty of other laughs, from other curled lips and
fingers of scorn, that few might have suspected it lived in him at all.

Later in life there appeared an object he might have cherished--the girl
of whom he had told Jane; but this did not leave the regret he tried to
make himself believe. He had never been able to rise above a lingering
disappointment because her fingers made no effort to untie the
knot;--rather, had she drawn it tighter by applauding those things which
inherently he realized needed rebuking