as possible. The thing has its limitations, I should think, for the
fictionist, chiefly in a sort of roundedness which leaves little play to
the imagination. It seems to me that it would be more to your purpose if
it were less _pat_, in its catastrophe, but you are a better judge of all
that than I am, and I will put the facts in your hands, and keep my own
hands off, so far as any plastic use of the material is concerned.

The first I knew of the peculiar Alderling situation was shortly after
William James's "Will to Believe" came out. I had been telling the
Alderlings about it, for they had not seen it, and I noticed that from
time to time they looked significantly at each other. When I had got
through he gave a little laugh, and she said, "Oh, you may laugh!" and
then I made bold to ask, "What is it?"

"Marion can tell you," he said. He motioned towards the coffee-pot and
asked, "More?" I shook my head, and he said, "Come out and let us see
what the maritime interests have been doing for us. Pipe or cigar?" I
chose cigarettes, and he brought the box off the table, stopping on his
way to the veranda, and taking his pipe and tobacco-pouch from the hall
mantel.

Mrs. Alderling had got to the veranda before us, and done things to the
chairs and cushions, and was leaning against one of the slender fluted
pine columns like some rich, blond caryatid just off duty, with the
blue of her dress and the red of her hair showing deliciously against
the background of white house-wall. He and she were an astonishing and
satisfying contrast; in the midst of your amazement you felt the divine
propriety of a woman like her wanting just such a wiry,
smoky-complexioned, black-browed, black-bearded, bald-headed little man
as he was. Before he sat down where she was going to put him, he