In much the same way he had sought for—­and waited for—­a wife.  He had been rashly put down as “not a marrying man,” when he was only taking his time.  He had seen plainly of excellent possibilities—­fine women, handsome women, clever women, good women—­any of whom presumably he could have had for the asking; but none was, in his own phraseology, “just the right thing.”  He wanted something unusual, and yet not exotic—­something obvious, which no one else had observed—­something cultivated, and yet native—­something as exquisite as any hothouse orchid, but with the keen, fresh scent of the American woods and waters on its bloom.  It was not a thing to be picked up every day, and so he kept on the lookout for it, and waited.  Even when he found it, he was not certain, on the spur of the moment, that it would prove exactly what he had in mind.  So he waited longer.  He watched the effect of time and experience upon it, until he was quite sure.  He knew the risk he was running that some one else might snatch it up; but his principle had always been to let everything, no matter how coveted, go, rather than buy in haste.

Lest such an attitude toward Miriam Strange should seem cold-blooded, it should be said in his defence that he considered the aggregate of his sentiments to be—­love.  She was to be more than “something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse,” more than the living, responsive soul among his chattels.  There was that in her which appealed to his desire, and to something more deeply seated in him still.  After satisfying ear, eye, and intelligence, there was in her nature a whole undiscovered region, undivined, undefined, wakening the imagination, and stirring the speculative faculties, like the subconscious elements in personality.  In her wild, non-Aryan glances he saw the flame of eyes that flashed on him out of a past unknown to history; in the liquid cadences of her voice he heard the echo of the speech that had sounded in the land before Plymouth was a stockade or Manhattan was a farm; in her presence he found a claim that antedated everything sprung of Hudson, Cabot, or Columbus.  The slender thread that attached her to the ages of nomadic mystery made her for him the indigenous spirit, reborn in a woman of the world.

Knowing himself too old to be dominated by a passion, and too experienced to be snared by wiles, he estimated his feelings as being those of love, as he understood the word.  He conceded the fact that love, like every other desire, must work to win, and proceeded to set about his task according to his usual methods of persistent, unobtrusive siege.  It was long before Miriam became aware of what he was doing, and her surprise as she drew back was not quite so great as his to see her do it.  He was so accustomed to success—­after taking the trouble to insure it—­that he was astonished, and a little angry, to find his usual tactics fail.  He did not believe that she was beyond his grasp; he perceived only that he had taken the wrong way to get her.  That there was a right way there could be no question; and he knew that by patient, unremitting search he should find it.