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 master of himself, but inwardly as helpless as a drowning man in the grip of a tempestuous sea.

Sometimes she would stop and turn to him her head perched quaintly on one side.

“Did you like that?”

“You sang it beautifully.”

“It is a pretty song.”

Who was she, and whence her accomplishments? He hated that last word; it reminded him of inferior things, inferior creatures. And yet he thought of it for want of a better. Occasionally he was troubled with a curious, almost a mean, thought. One cannot for ever embrace the ideal, or live in a world of make-believe. A hundred times he told himself it did not matter who or what she was; and again he as often found himself perturbed with mental inquiry. And then the charm of her personality would seize him once more, hold him with iron strength in its soft, velvet grip, and spin him hither and thither at will.

Never before had he seen such a curve of chin and neck. It showed most markedly when she turned three-quarter face to him, which she did so frequently as to make him wonder.