you choose to call it. Do you suppose, if I could have found fifteen
years ago the woman to have made me happy, I should have spent so much
time in seeking distraction?"

"Perhaps you could not have been capable of appreciating her--fifteen
years ago," suggested Honora. And, lest he might misconstrue her remark,
she avoided his eyes.

"Perhaps," he admitted. "But suppose I have found her now, when I know
the value of things."

"Suppose you should find her now--within a reasonable time. What would
you do?"

"Marry her," he exclaimed promptly. "Marry her and take her to Grenoble,
and live the life my father lived before me."

She did not reply, but rose, and he followed her to the shaded corner of
the porch where they usually sat. The bundle of yellow-stained envelopes
he had brought were lying on the table, and Honora picked them up
mechanically.

"I have been thinking," she said as she removed the elastics, "that it is
a mistake to begin a biography by the enumeration of one's ancestors.
Readers become frightfully bored before they get through the first
chapter."

"I'm beginning to believe," he laughed, "that you will have to write this
one alone. All the ideas I have got so far have been yours. Why shouldn't
you write it, and I arrange the material, and talk about it! That appears