The young man looked up from his meditative pacing of the room.

“Aunt Bell, I think I may say that I pleased myself this morning—­and you know that’s not easy for me.”

“It’s too bad Nance wasn’t there!”

“Nancy is not pleasing me,” began her husband, in gentle tones.

“I didn’t feel equal to it, Allan,” his wife called from the library.

“Oh, you’re there!  My dear, you give up too easily to little indispositions that another woman would make nothing of.  I’ve repeated that to you so often that, really, your further ignoring it appears dangerously like perverseness—­”

“Is she crying?” he asked Aunt Bell, as they both listened.

“Laughing!” replied that lady.

“My dear, may I ask if you are laughing at me?”

“Dear, no!—­only at something I happened to think of.”  She came into the dining-room, a morning paper in her hand.  “Besides, in to-morrow’s paper I shall read all about what the handsome rector of St. Antipas said, in his handsome voice, to his handsome hearers—­”

He had frowned at first, but now smiled indulgently, as they sat down to luncheon.  “You will have your joke about my appearance, Nance!  That reminds me—­that poor romantic little Mrs. Eversley—­sister of Mrs. Wyeth, you know—­said to me after service this morning, ’Oh, Dr. Linford, if I could only believe in Christian dogma as I believe in you as a man!’ You know, she’s such a painfully emotional, impulsive creature, and then Colonel Godwin who stood by had to have his joke:  ‘The symbol will serve you for worship, Madam!’ he says; ’I’m sure no woman’s soul would ever be lost if all clergymen were as good to look upon as our friend here!’ Those things always make me feel so awkward—­they are said so bluntly—­but what could I do?”

“Mr. Browett’s sister and her son were out with him this morning,” began Aunt Bell, charitably entering another channel of conversation from the intuition that her niece was wincing.  But, as not infrequently happened, the seeming outlet merely gave again into the main channel.

“And there’s Browett,” continued the Doctor.  “Now I am said to have great influence over women—­women trust me, believe me—­I may even say look up to me—­but I pledge you my word I am conscious of wielding an immensely greater influence over men.  There seems to be in my ego the power to prevail.  Take Browett—­most men are afraid of him—­not physical fear, but their inner selves, their egos, go down before him.  Yet from the moment I first saw that man I dominated him.  It’s all in having an ego that means mastery, Aunt Bell.  Browett has it himself, but I have a greater one.  Every time Browett’s eyes meet mine he knows in his soul that I’m his master—­his ego prostrates itself before mine—­and yet that man”—­he concluded in a tone of distinguishable awe—­“is worth all the way from two to three hundred millions!”