“No, we didn’t, Henry,” replied Mrs. Upton.  “But that was only because it takes two to make a quarrel, and I loved you so much that I was really blind to all your possibilities as an irritant.”

“Oh!” said Henry, reflectively.

III

A SET-BACK

  “All is confounded, all! 
  Reproach and everlasting shame
  Sits mocking in our plumes.”

  —­Henry V.

Time demonstrated with great effectiveness the unhappy fact that Mrs. Upton knew whereof she spoke when she likened an engagement to a political campaign, in that the real battle begins after the nominations are made.  Walter Bliss had decided views as to life, and Miss Meeker was hardly less settled in her convictions.  Long before she had met Bliss, in default of a real she had builded up in her mind an ideal man, which at first, second, and even third sight Walter had seemed to her to represent.  But unfortunately there is a fourth sight, and the lover or the fiancee who can get beyond this is safe—­comparatively safe, that is, for everything in this world has its merits or its demerits, comparatively speaking, and the comparison is more often than not made from the point of view of what ought to be rather than of what really is.  Mrs. Upton was a realist—­that is, she thought she was; and so was Miss Meeker.  Everybody looks at life from his or her own point of view, and there must always be, consequently, two points of view, for there will always be a male way and a female way of looking at things.  Walter was in love with his profession.  Molly was in love with him as an abstract thing.  She knew nothing of him as a Washington fighting measles; she was not aware whether he could combat tonsillitis as successfully as Napoleon fought the Austrians or not, and it may be added that she didn’t care.  He was merely a man in her estimation; a thing in the abstract, and a most charming thing on the whole.  He, on the other hand, looked upon her not as a woman, but as a soul, and a purified soul at that:  an angel, indeed, without the incumbrance of wings, was she, and with a rather more comprehensive knowledge of dress than is attributed to most of angels.  But two people cannot go on forming an ideal of each other continuously without at some time reaching a point of divergence, and Walter and Molly reached that point within ten weeks.  It happened that while calling upon her one evening Walter received a professional summons which he admitted was all nonsense—­why should people call in doctors when it is “all nonsense”?

The call came while Walter was turning over the leaves at the piano as Molly played.

“What is this?” he said, as he opened the note that was addressed to him.  “Humph!  Mrs. Hubbard’s boy is sick—­”

“Must you go?” Molly asked.

“I suppose so,” said Walter.  “I saw him this afternoon, and there is not the slightest thing the matter with him, but I must go.”