pretty decent ruffians, but Matthew has a mind--he's thoughtful--and an
imagination. He'll make a name for himself some day if he's steered
properly and allowed to develop naturally. Moreton's more like my boys.
And as for Chickabiddy!--" words failed him.

I put my hand on his knee. I actually loved him again as I had loved and
yearned for him as a child,--he was so human, so dependable. And why
couldn't this feeling last? He disapproved--foolishly, I thought--of my
professional career, and this was only one of his limitations. But I knew
that he was loyal. Why hadn't I been able to breathe and be reasonably
happy in that atmosphere of friendship and love in which I had been
placed--or rather in which I had placed myself?.... Before the summer was
a day or two older I had grown accustomed to being alone, and enjoyed the
liberty; and when Maude and the children returned in the autumn,
similarly, it took me some days to get used to the restrictions imposed
by a household. I run the risk of shocking those who read this by
declaring that if my family had been taken permanently out of my life, I
should not long have missed them. But on the whole, in those years my
marriage relation might be called a negative one. There were moments, as
I have described, when I warmed to Maude, moments when I felt something
akin to a violent antagonism aroused by little mannerisms and tricks she
had. The fact that we got along as well as we did was probably due to the
orthodox teaching with which we had been inoculated,--to the effect that
matrimony was a moral trial, a shaking-down process. But moral trials
were ceasing to appeal to people, and more and more of them were refusing
to be shaken down. We didn't cut the Gordian knot, but we managed to
loosen it considerably.

I have spoken of a new species of titans who inhabited the giant
buildings in Wall Street, New York, and fought among themselves for