"Oh, trouble," he answered. "If that were all! A man can bear
trouble."

"What else?" she asked.

His eyes travelled aimlessly about the room. "They taught me a lot
of things when I was a boy," he said, "my mother and others--they
meant well--which as I grew older I discovered to be lies; and so I
came to think that nothing good was true, and that everything and
everybody was evil. And then--"

His wandering eyes came round to her and he broke off abruptly.
"Good-bye," he said, and the next moment he was gone.

She sat wondering for a while what he had meant. Then Sennett
returned, and the words went out of her head.


A good deal of sympathy was felt for Mrs. Blake. The man had a
charming wife; he might have kept straight; but as his friends
added, "Blake always was a cad."



AN ITEM OF FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE



Speaking personally, I do not like the Countess of --. She is not
the type of woman I could love. I hesitate the less giving