glamour by the prosaic personality of the narrator. The Editor
added: "I've been asked to help in the search--you know."

Renouard muttered something about an appointment and went out into
the street. His inborn sanity could not defend him from a misty
creeping jealousy. He thought that obviously no man of that sort
could be worthy of such a woman's devoted fidelity. Renouard,
however, had lived long enough to reflect that a man's activities,
his views, and even his ideas may be very inferior to his
character; and moved by a delicate consideration for that splendid
girl he tried to think out for the man a character of inward
excellence and outward gifts--some extraordinary seduction. But in
vain. Fresh from months of solitude and from days at sea, her
splendour presented itself to him absolutely unconquerable in its
perfection, unless by her own folly. It was easier to suspect her
of this than to imagine in the man qualities which would be worthy
of her. Easier and less degrading. Because folly may be generous-
-could be nothing else but generosity in her; whereas to imagine
her subjugated by something common was intolerable.

Because of the force of the physical impression he had received
from her personality (and such impressions are the real origins of
the deepest movements of our soul) this conception of her was even
inconceivable. But no Prince Charming has ever lived out of a
fairy tale. He doesn't walk the worlds of Fashion and Finance--and
with a stumbling gait at that. Generosity. Yes. It was her
generosity. But this generosity was altogether regal in its
splendour, almost absurd in its lavishness--or, perhaps, divine.

In the evening, on board his schooner, sitting on the rail, his