could fail to realize the undercurrent of emotion below the gaiety of
the daily ripple of amusement and pleasurable excitement and converse.

They read together, they exchanged experiences of travel, they discussed
literature, music, art and the stage, with the enthusiastic partisanship
of zealous youth. They talked of life, with its shade and shadow, its
heights and depths of meaning, and altogether became very well
acquainted. Each day anew, they discovered an unusual congeniality in
thoughts and opinions. They shared in a large measure the same exalted
outlook upon life--the same lofty ambitions and dreams.

And the more Paul learned of the character of this strange girl, the
more he felt that she was the one woman in the world for him. To be
sure, he had known that, subconsciously, the first time he had heard her
voice. Now he knew it by force of reason as well, and he cursed the fate
that denied him the right to declare himself her lover and claim her
before the world.

One thing that impressed Paul about the girl was the generous charity
with which she viewed the frailties of human nature, her sincere pity
for all forms of human weakness and defeat, her utter freedom from petty
malice or spite. Rail at life and its hypocrisies, as she often did, she
yet felt the tragedy in its pitiful short-comings, and looked with the
eye of real compassion upon its sins and its sinners, condoning as far
as possible the fault she must have in her very heart abhorred.

"We all make mistakes," she would say, when someone retailed a bit of
scandal. "No human being is perfect, nor within a thousand miles of
perfection. What right then have we to condemn any fellow-creature for
his sins, when we break just as important laws in some other direction?
It's common hypocrisy to say, 'We never could have done this terrible
thing!' and draw our mantle of self-righteousness closely about us lest
it become contaminated. Perhaps we couldn't! Why? Because our
temptations do not happen to lie in that particular direction, that's
all! But we are all law-breakers; not one keeps the Ten Commandments to
the letter--not one! Attack us on our own weak point and see how quickly
we run up the flag of surrender--and perhaps the poor sinner we denounce
for his guilt would scorn just as bitterly to give in to the weakness
that gets the best of us. _Sin is sin_, and one defect is as hideous as
another. He who breaks one part of the code of morality and
ri