Page:Duer Miller--The charm school.djvu/72

 As every biologist knows, the nest-making instinct is not wholly absent in the male, and Austin derived the keenest pleasure from settling himself and his few belongings in the white cottage at the edge of the water. The process of settling consisted largely in trying Susie's beautiful, long, brown photograph in different positions. His own dressing-table seemed too intimate, his sitting-room mantelpiece too remote, and he finally decided on the desk in his study, where visiting parents, looking upon it, might understand that he was practically an engaged man.

Though he had taken over the school primarily with the object of making enough money to marry Susie, having taken it over, he desired burningly to do the right thing by his pupils. It had always seemed to him tragic the way the happiness of women in this world depended on their possession of charm. He saw that Miss Hayes and people of her sort were trying to reorganize all human life, so that charm would not be such a preponderating factor. His own ambitions were much less vast; he simply wanted to help the little group under his charge to the attainment of as much of the precious quality as was possible. About this he was extremely serious.