ceptive--that he had never
seen in Marguerite.

"But how do I know? What do I know?" he asked himself, still following
on. "The Marguerite I know is but a thing of my dreams, and this is
not that Marguerite of my actual sight, to whom I never gave a word or
smile or glance that calls for redemption. This is the Marguerite of
my dreams."

Claude was still following, when without any cause that one could see,
the young man of the group looked back. He had an unpleasant face; it
showed a small offensive energy that seemed to assert simply him and
all his against you and all yours. His eyes were black, piercing, and
hostile. They darted their glances straight into Claude's. Guilty
Claude! dogging the steps of ladies on the street! He blushed for
shame, turned a corner into Exchange Alley, walked a little way down
it, came back, saw the great crowd coming and going, vehicles of all
sorts hurrying here and there; ranks of street-cars waiting their
turns to start to all points of the compass; sellers of peanuts and
walking-sticks, buyers of bouquets, acquaintances meeting or
overtaking one another, nodding bonnets, lifted hats, faces, faces,
faces; but the one face was gone.

Caught, Claude? And by a mere face? The charge is too unkind. Young
folly, yes, or old folly, may read goodness rashly into all beauty, or
not care to read it in any. But it need not be so. Upon the face of
youth the soul within writes its confessions and promises; and when
the warm pulses of young nature are sanctified by upward yearnings,
and a pure conscience, the soul that seeks its mate will seek that
face which, behind and through all excellencies of mere tint and
feature, mirrors back the seeker's own faiths and hopes; and when that
is found, that to such a one is beauty. Judge not; you never saw this
face, fairer than Marguerite's, to say whether its beauty was mere
face, or the transparent shrine of an equal nobility within.

Besides, Claude would have fired up and denied the first word of the
charge with unpleasant flatness. To be caught means to be in love, to
be in love implies a wish and hope to marry, and these were just what
Claude could not allow. May not a man, nevertheless, have an ideal of
truth and beauty and look worshipfully upon its embodiment? Humph!

His eyes sought her in vain not only on that afternoon, but on many
following. The sun was setting every day later and later through the
black lace-work of pecan-trees and behin