CHAPTER XVII.

"EH, BUT SHE'S WINSOME."

"Eh, but she's winsome!"

Grant Harlson entered my room one evening with this irrelevant
exclamation.

I have remained unmarried, and have learned how to live, as a man may,
after a fashion, who has no aid from that sex which alone knows how to
make a home.

Harlson, at this time, had apartments very near me, and we invaded each
other's rooms at will, and were a mutual comfort to each other, and a
help--at least I know that he was all this to me. I have never yet
seen a man so strong and self-reliant or secretive--save some few who
were misers or recluses, and not of the real world--who, if there were
no woman for him, would not tell things to some one man. We two knew
each other, and counted on each other, and while I could not do as much
for him as he for me, I could try as hard. He knew that.

"Eh, but she's winsome!"

He went to the mantel, took a cigar, and lit it, and turned to me
indignantly: