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 In spite of his gratitude to her, he felt that there was something not quite open and natural about her; the very violence of those emotional outbursts which he had unwittingly provoked in her, in the past, had made him uneasy concerning the unknown depths from which they came. It was as if she were continually striking matches in the darkness with a disconcerting suddenness—as she had on the evening of their first meeting—and as suddenly dropping the match and withdrawing into the darkness again. She had known him for years, and yet in all those years she had kept herself hidden from him. She had never told him anything of her past with Polk; and she had spoken guardedly, now, of her "influence" with the playwright. In short, she had repelled Don by her lack of frankness in all matters concerning herself, though she had attracted him and bound him to her by the sincerity of her kindly interest in his welfare.

Well, she, too, was leaving him now, he thought; and that secession would eliminate another of his problems. His life was becoming more simple; it was narrowing down to his relations with Margaret; it was beginning to flow quietly in a still, deep stream. As he walked home after the play, under a moon that looked down, untroubled, on the fretful street-lights, he felt himself walking towards peace, guided by that placid hermit of the night, that mild philosopher of the white silences. Its influence possessed him with an unquestioning contentment. He felt, rather than argued, the presence in the world of an unseen Power for good that had led mankind from barbarity to civilization along a progress of which simple faith had been the