of them," he said presently. "Poor Dad. He is the
best of us all, I believe." Though there was an expression of pain in
his eyes, she noticed that the unnatural lethargy, the nervous
irritation, had disappeared. He looked as if a load had dropped from his
shoulders.

As with many women who have reconciled themselves to the weakness of a
man, the first sign of his strength was more than a surprise, it was
almost a shock to her. She had believed that her knowledge of him was
perfect; yet she saw now that there had been a single flaw in her
analysis, and that this flaw was the result of a fundamental
misconception of his character. For she had forgotten that, conservative
and apparently priggish as he was, he was before all things a romantic
in temperament; and the true romantic will shrink from the ordinary risk
while he accepts the extraordinary one. She had forgotten that men of
Stephen's nature are incapable of small sacrifices, and yet at the same
time capable of large ones; that, though they may not endure petty
discomforts with fortitude, they are able, in moments of vivid
experience, to perform acts of conspicuous and splendid nobility. For
the old order was not merely the outward form of the conservative
principle, it was also the fruit of heroic tradition.

"You must think it over, Stephen," she pleaded. "Go away now, and try
to realize all that it will mean to you."

"Thinking doesn't get me anywhere," he replied. His face was pale and
thoughtful; and Corinna knew, while she watched him, that he had found
freedom at last; that he had come into his manhood. "I've made my
choice, and I'll stand by it to-day even if I regret it to-morrow.
You've got to take chances; to leave the safe road and strike out into
open country. That's living. Otherwise you might as well be dead. I
can't just cling like moss to institutions that other people have made;
to the things that have always been. I've got to take chances--and I'm
enough of a sport not to whine if the game goes against me--"

The part of Corinna's nature that was not cautious, but reckless, the
part in her whose source was imagination and impulse, thrilled in
sympathy with his resolve. Though she gazed down the straight deserted
street, her eyes were looking beyond the sprouting weeds and the
cobblestones to some starry flower which bloomed only in an invisible
world.

"I understand, dear," she answered softly. "I can't tell whether or not
it is the safe way