pear--something she doesn't know about, herself. What is it? Maybe
it was only vanity and vacillation. Again, I don't know."

The difficulty Mrs. Belloc labored under in her attempt to explore and
map Mildred Gower was a difficulty we all labor under in those same
enterprises. We cannot convince ourselves--in spite of experience
after experience--that a human character is never consistent and
homogeneous, is always conglomerate, that there are no two traits,
however naturally exclusive, which cannot coexist in the same
personality, that circumstance is the dominating factor in human action
and brings forward as dominant characteristics now one trait or set of
traits, consistent or inconsistent, and now another. The Alexander who
was Aristotle's model pupil was the same Alexander as the drunken
debaucher. Indeed, may it not be that the characters which play the
large parts in the comedy of life are naturally those that offer to the
shifting winds of circumstances the greatest variety of strongly
developed and contradictory qualities? For example, if it was
Mildred's latent courage rescued her from Siddall, was it not her
strong tendency to vacillation that saved her from a loveless and
mercenary marriage to Stanley Baird? Perhaps the deep underlying truth
is that all unusual people have in common the character that centers a
powerful aversion to stagnation; thus, now by their strong qualities,
now by their weaknesses, they are swept inevitably on and on and ever
on. Good to-day, bad to-morrow, good again the day after, weak in this
instance, strong in that, now brave and now cowardly, soft at one time,
hard at another, generous and the reverse by turns, they are consistent
only in that they are never at rest, but incessantly and inevitably go.

Mildred reluctantly rose, moved toward the door with lingering step. "I
guess I'd better make a start," said she.

"That's the talk," said Mrs. Belloc heartily. But the affectionate
glance she sent after the girl was dubious--even pitying.

IX

TWO minutes' walk through to Broadway, and she was at her destination.
There, on the other side of the way, stood the Gayety Theater, with the
offices of Mr. Clarence Crossley overlooking the intersection of the
two streets. Crossley was intrenched in the remotest of a series of
rooms, each tenanted by under-staffers of diminishing importance as you
drew way from the great man. It was next to impossible to get at
him--a