happy young pagan with this simple theory. After the passing of
some years he had not been quite so happy but had remained quite
as pagan and retained the theory which had lost its first fine
careless rapture and gained a secret bitterness. He had not married
and innumerable stories were related to explain the reason why.
They were most of them quite false and none of them quite true.
When he ceased to be a young man his delinquency was much discussed,
more especially when his father died and he took his place as the
head of his family. He was old enough, rich enough, important enough
for marriage to be almost imperative. But he remained unmarried.
In addition he seemed to consider his abstinence entirely an affair
of his own.

"Are you as wicked as people say you are?" a reckless young woman
once asked him. She belonged to the younger set which was that
season trying recklessness, in a tentative way, as a new fashion.

"I really don't know. It is so difficult to decide," he answered.
"I could tell better if I knew exactly what wickedness is. When
I find out I will let you know. So good of you to take an interest."

Thirty years earlier he knew that a young lady who had heard he was
wicked would have perished in flames before immodestly mentioning
the fact to him, but might have delicately attempted to offer "first
aid" to reformation, by approaching with sweetness the subject of
going to church.

The reckless young woman looked at him with an attention which
he was far from being blind enough not to see was increased by his
answer.