CHAPTER III: THE RECONSTRUCTION BEGINS



"Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human."--BURNS.

When, a few days later, Harley came to the reconstruction of his
story, he began to appreciate the fact that what had seemed at first
to be his misfortune was, on the whole, a matter for congratulation;
and as he thought over the people he had sent to sea, he came to
rejoice that Marguerite was not one of the party.

"Osborne wasn't her sort, after all," he mused to himself that night
over his coffee. "He hadn't much mind. I'm afraid I banked too much
on his good looks, and too little upon what I might call her
independence; for of all the heroines I ever had, she is the most
sufficient unto herself. Had she gone along I'm half afraid I
couldn't have got rid of Balderstone so easily either, for he's a
determined devil as I see him; and his intellectual qualities were so
vastly superior to those of Osborne that by mere contrast they would
most certainly have appealed to her strongly. The baleful influence
might have affected her seriously, and Osborne was never the man to
overcome it, and strict realism would have forced her into an
undesirable marriage. Yes, I'm glad it turned out the way it did;
she's too good for either of them. I couldn't have done the tale as