ears. Margaret, too, was well satisfied to let the affair drift along
indefinitely, while she anticipated with delight the surprise she was
preparing for me.

During the years she had just been spending abroad a good share of her
time had been given to her musical studies, principally vocal culture, and
in her letters she provokingly quoted, for my consideration, the
flattering comments of her instructors and other acquaintances. She did
this as part of my punishment, trying to make me realize how much pleasure
I was losing. Each time I crossed the ocean to visit her I expected she
would relent, but I was as often disappointed; and now this homeward
voyage had almost come to an end, and I had never heard her voice in song
since she was a child. Open and unreserved as she was by nature, in this
particular she had schooled herself to be as reticent and undemonstrative
as she accused me of being.

Our talk on the subject of my shortcomings, that evening on shipboard, had
not continued much longer before I acknowledged in plain language that I
knew my fault and was ready to cooperate in any scheme that could be
suggested to cure it.

"What you need," said Margaret, "is some violent sensation, some
extraordinary experience to stir your soul."

"Yes," I answered, "my humdrum life, my wealth, which came to me without
any effort of my own, and the hitherto almost unruffled character of my
relations with you have all conspired to make me satisfied with an easy
and rather indolent existence. I realize I need a shaking up. I want to
forget myself in some novel experience, which shall engross all my
attention for a time and draw upon my sympathies if I have any."