* In the files of the outlook, a critical weekly of the period, in the number dated August 18, 1906, is related the circumstance of a workingman losing his arm, the details of which are quite similar to those of Jackson’s case as related by Avis Everhard.

And they were sincere, these two women.  They were drunk with conviction of the superiority of their class and of themselves.  They had a sanction, in their own class-ethic, for every act they performed.  As I drove away from Mrs. Pertonwaithe’s great house, I looked back at it, and I remembered Ernest’s expression that they were bound to the machine, but that they were so bound that they sat on top of it.

CHAPTER V

THE PHILOMATHS

Ernest was often at the house.  Nor was it my father, merely, nor the controversial dinners, that drew him there.  Even at that time I flattered myself that I played some part in causing his visits, and it was not long before I learned the correctness of my surmise.  For never was there such a lover as Ernest Everhard.  His gaze and his hand-clasp grew firmer and steadier, if that were possible; and the question that had grown from the first in his eyes, grew only the more imperative.

My impression of him, the first time I saw him, had been unfavorable.  Then I had found myself attracted toward him.  Next came my repulsion, when he so savagely attacked my class and me.  After that, as I saw that he had not maligned my class, and that the harsh and bitter things he said about it were justified, I had drawn closer to him again.  He became my oracle.  For me he tore the sham from the face of society and gave me glimpses of reality that were as unpleasant as they were undeniably true.

As I have said, there was never such a lover as he.  No girl could live in a university town till she was twenty-four and not have love experiences.  I had been made love to by beardless sophomores and gray professors, and by the athletes and the football giants.  But not one of them made love to me as Ernest did.  His arms were around me before I knew.  His lips were on mine before I could protest or resist.  Before his earnestness conventional maiden dignity was ridiculous.  He swept me off my feet by the splendid invincible rush of him.  He did not propose.  He put his arms around me and kissed me and took it for granted that we should be married.  There was no discussion about it.  The only discussion—­and that arose afterward—­was when we should be married.

It was unprecedented.  It was unreal.  Yet, in accordance with Ernest’s test of truth, it worked.  I trusted my life to it.  And fortunate was the trust.  Yet during those first days of our love, fear of the future came often to me when I thought of the violence and impetuosity of his love-making.  Yet such fears were groundless.  No woman was ever blessed with a gentler, tenderer husband.  This gentleness and violence on his part was a curious blend similar to the one in his carriage of awkwardness and ease.  That slight awkwardness!  He never got over it, and it was delicious.  His behavior in our drawing-room reminded me of a careful bull in a china shop.*