doubt which was harassing. His clear mind was too modest to
believe in its own infallibility, for he was psychologist enough to
understand that no one can be absolutely sure that his perspective of
life is accurate. Possibly he was sacrificing his wife's legitimate
aspirations to too rigid canons of behavior, and to an unconscious lack
of initiative. On the other hand, as a positive character, he believed
that he saw clearly, and he could not avoid the reflection that, if this
was the case, he and Selma were drifting apart--the more bitter
alternative of the two, and a condition which, if perpetuated, would
involve the destruction of the scheme of matrimonial happiness, the
ideal communion of two sympathetic souls, in which he was living as a
proud partner. Apparently he was in one of two predicaments; either he
was self deceived, which was abhorrent to him as a thoughtful grappler
with the eternal mysteries, or he had misinterpreted the character of
the woman whose transcendent quality was a dearer faith to him than the
integrity of his own manhood.

So it was with a troubled heart that he applied himself to more rigorous
professional endeavor. Like most architects he had pursued certain lines
of work because orders had come to him, and the chances of employment
had ordained that his services should be sought for small churches,
school-houses and kindred buildings in the surrounding country rather
than for more elaborate and costly structures. On these undertakings it
was his habit to expend abundant thought and devotion. The class of work
was to his taste, for, though the funds at his disposal were not always
so large as he desired for artistic effects, yet he enjoyed the
opportunity of showing that simplicity need not be homely and
disenchanting, but could wear the aspect of grace and poetry. Latterly
he had been requested to furnish designs for some blocks of houses in
the outlying wards of the city, where the owners sought to provide
attractive, modern flats for people with moderate means. Various
commissions had come to him, also, to design decorative work, which
interested him and gave scope to his refined and aspiring imagination,
and he was enthusiastically absorbed in preparing his competitive plans
for the building of Wetmore College. His time was already well occupied
by the matters which he had in hand. That is, he had enough to do and
yet did not feel obliged to deny himself the luxury of deliberate
thorou