her lover had come to. "It's too plain," she thought in her clear,
common-sense way, "that he's getting into a 'fuss' when he might just as
well, or better, keep out of it."

May was eminently practical, and not at all as emotional as one might
have inferred from the sensitive, quick-changing colour that at one
moment flushed her cheeks and at another ebbed, leaving her pallid, as
with passion. Not that she was hardhearted or selfish. Far from it. But
her surroundings had moulded her as they do women. Her mother had been
one of the belles of Baltimore, a Southerner, too, by temperament. May
had a brother and a sister older than herself (both were now married),
and a younger brother who had taken care that she should not be spoiled
for want of direct personal criticism. It was this younger brother, Joe,
who first called her "Towhead," and even now he often made disparaging
remarks about "girls who didn't weigh 130"--in Joe's eyes, a Venus of
Rubens would have seemed perfect. May was not vain of her looks; indeed,
she had only come to take pleasure in them of recent years. As a young
girl, comparing herself with her mother, she feared that she would
always be "quite homely." Her glass and the attentions of men had
gradually shown her the pleasant truth. She did not, however, even now,
overrate her beauty greatly. But her character had been modified to
advantage in those schoolgirl days, when, with bitter tears, she
admitted to herself that she was not pretty. Her teacher's praise of her
quickness and memory had taught her to set her pride on learning. And
indeed she had been an intelligent child, gifted with a sponge-like
faculty of assimilating all kinds of knowledge--the result, perhaps, of
generations of educated forbears. The admiration paid to her looks did
not cause her to relax her intellectual efforts. But when at the
University she found herself outgrowing the ordinary standards of
opinion, conceit at first took possession of her. It seemed to her