singularly virulent variety."

It was beyond Sharlee's power to controvert this diagnosis. Mr. Queed
had in fact impressed her as the most frankly and grossly self-centred
person she had ever seen in her life. But unlike West, her uppermost
feeling in regard to him was a strong sense of pity. She knew things
about his life that West did not know and probably never would. For
though the little Doctor of Mrs. Paynter's had probably not intended to
give her a confidence, and certainly had no right to do so, she had thus
regarded what he said to her in the dining-room that night, and of his
pathetic situation in regard to a father she never meant to say a word
to anybody.

"I sized him up for a remarkable man," said she, "when I saw the
wonderful way he sat upon his hat that afternoon. Don't you remember? He
struck me then as the most natural, unconscious, and direct human being
I ever saw--don't you think that?--and now think of his powers of
concentration. All his waking time, except what he gives to the _Post_,
goes to that awful book of his. He is ridiculous now because his theory
of life is ridiculous. But suppose it popped into his head some day to
switch all that directness and concentrated energy in some other
direction. Don't you think he might be rather a formidable young
person?"

West conceded that there might be something in that. And happening to
glance across the flower-sweet table at the moment, he was adroitly
detached and re-attached by the superbly "finished" Miss Avery.

The little dinner progressed. Nor was this the only spot in town where
evening meals were going forward amid stimulating talk. Far away over