"Jim was always very brilliant," returned Mrs. Bradley, indifferently,
and with more than even conventionally polite wifely deprecation; "I
wish he were more practical."

"Practical! Oh, I say, Mrs. Bradley! Why, a fellow that can go in among
a lot of workmen and tell them just what to do--an all-round chap
that can be independent of his valet, his doctor, and his--banker! By
Jove--THAT'S practical!"

"I mean," said Mrs. Bradley, coldly, "that there are some things that
a gentleman ought not to be practical about nor independent of. Mr.
Bradley would have done better to have used his talents in some more
legitimate and established way."

Mainwaring looked at her in genuine surprise. To his inexperienced
observation Bradley's intelligent energy and, above all, his
originality, ought to have been priceless in the eyes of his wife--the
American female of his species. He felt that slight shock which most
loyal or logical men feel when first brought face to face with the easy
disloyalty and incomprehensible logic of the feminine affections. Here
was a fellow, by Jove, that any woman ought to be proud of, and--and--he
stopped blankly. He wondered if Miss Macy sympathized with her cousin.

Howbeit, this did not affect the charm of their idyllic life at The
Lookout. The precipice over which they hung was as charming as ever
in its poetic illusions of space and depth and color; the isolation of
their comfortable existence in the tasteful yet audacious habitation,
the pleasant routine of daily tasks and amusements, all tended to make
the enforced quiet and inaction of his convalescence a lazy recreation.
He was really improving; more than that, he was conscious of a certain