le, too, to meet Charlotte
without betraying embarrassment. But after an hour's solitude, he had
sufficient command of himself to fill the appointment, and he appeared
at the Davis house with all his usual placidity of manner. After all,
he had to go on as if nothing had happened, and it was as well, he told
himself, to begin immediately. That was, perhaps, the worst of secret
disasters like his and Sheila's--that one had to go on as if nothing
had happened; that one had to wear, from the first, a bright mask of
concealment. But it was, in a way, the best, too--this necessity for
taking up tangible, practical matters, for continuing duties,
obligations, enterprises that, perforce, diverted at least a part of
one's mind from the contemplation of an inner tragedy. There was
effort in having to talk, to listen intelligently, to laugh, but there
was relief, too, and the sense of safety that, when adrift on chaotic
seas, one feels at the touch of something solid. So he talked and
listened and laughed with conscientious care. And watching Charlotte
across the dinner table, he considered Sheila's plea.

As he had said to Sheila, he thought Charlotte clever and handsome and
kind. Whole-heartedly he liked and admired her; he enjoyed her; he was
stimulated by her. He was even prepared to admit that, if she would
marry him, she might actually make something of him, middle-aged though
he was. His attainments, his really brilliant qualities of mind, were
there to build with--and she was, by nature, a builder. He could see
her taking hold of his life and creating out of its hitherto negative
stuff a thing worth while. He could see her thus active for him and
with him, and feel a certain pleasure in the picture. To think of
himself as dear to a woman like Charlotte could not but touch a man
pleasantly and warmly. And yet, thus touched, thus drawn, he knew
still that his whole-hearted admiration and liking would never be
followed by whole-hearted love. His passion for Sheila had gone too
deep to be effaced. Unhappily for himself, he was not one of those
whose heart can be enlisted sincerely more than once. He looked across
the table at Charlotte and noted the strong, rich gold of her hair, the
dark, definite blue of her eyes, the gracious lines of her shoulders;
he heard her clear, positive, courageous voice, her blithe laughter; he
looked and listened and thought of her as his--and his heart clung to
its dream of a wo