any one could have supposed possible.

The truth was, she was grateful for whatever absorbed her and kept her
from dwelling upon that dehumanized house at Silvertree. Her busy days
enabled her to fight her sorrow very well, but in the night, like a
wailing child, her longing for her mother awoke, and she nursed it,
treasuring it as those freshly bereaved often do. The memory of that
little frustrated soul made her tender of all women, and too prone,
perhaps, to lay to some man the blame of their shortcomings. She had no
realization that she had set herself in this subtle and subconscious way
against men. But whether she admitted it or not, the fact remained that
she stood with her sisters, whatever their estate, leagued secretly
against the other sex.

By way of emphasizing her devotion to her work, she ceased answering Ray
McCrea's letters. She studiously avoided the attentions of the men she
met at the Settlement House and at Mrs. Dennison's Caravansary.
Sometimes, without her realizing it, her thoughts took on an almost
morbid hue, so that, looking at Honora with her chaste, kind, uplifted
face, she resented her close association with her husband. It seemed
offensive that he, with his curious, half-restrained excesses of
temperament, should have domination over her friend who stood so
obviously for abnegation. David manifestly was averse to bounds and
limits. All that was wild and desirous of adventure, in Kate informed
her of like qualities in this man. But she held--and meant always to
hold--the restless falcons of her spirit in leash. Would David Fulham do
as much? She could not be quite sure, and instinctively she avoided
anything approaching intimacy with him.

He was her friend's husband. "Friend's husband" was a sort of limbo into