“Oh, of course.  Peter told the third assistant bookkeeper to credit Harlson with such or such an amount.”  And he added; “If those people don’t take good care of that old woman there’ll be a new superintendent.”  But they took good care of her.

This is lugging in an incident at great length as an illustration, but I know of no other way to explain how Harlson so expressed himself when I asked him how he knew whether the woman of whom he had been talking was married or not.  He felt confident enough.

“Well, what is she like?  Can’t you describe her?  Has she seared your eyes with her loveliness?”

“She hasn’t seared my eyes.  She has only opened them.  Listen to me, you thing of mud!  She is just a little brown streak.”

“That’s an odd description of a woman.”

“It’s the correct one, though.  She’s just a little brown streak of a thing.”

“Well, I’ve heard of a man in love with a dream, and in love with a shadow, but never before did I hear of one infatuated with a streak.  Where did you meet this creature?  Have you known her long?”

“Only for a month or so, and but slightly.  We have not met half a dozen times.  It was only tonight, you see, that I began to know her well.  We talked together, and I got a glimpse of her real self—­of her slender little body, of her earthly tenement, of course, I had an idea before.  She is a lissom thing, with eyes like wells, and with a way to her which conveys the idea of wisdom without wickedness, and which makes a man wish he were not what he is, and were more fitted to associate with her.”

“That’s one good effect, anyhow.  I don’t know of any man who more needed to meet such a woman.  How long do you expect this influence to last?”

“Longer than one of your good resolutions, my son; as long as she will have anything to do with me.”

“Does this brown streak of a saint live in the city?  Is her shrine easy of access?  What are you going to do about it?”

“She’s not a saint; she’s a piquant, cultivated woman; but she is different, somehow, from any other I’ve ever met.”

“You’ve met a good many, my boy.”

His face fell a little.

“Yes,” he said, “and I almost wish it were different; but the past is not all there is of being.  There’s a heap of comfort in that.”

“Cupid has thumped you with his bird-bolt, certainly.  Why, man, you don’t mean to say that you’re in earnest—­that you are really stricken; that this promises to be something unlike all other heart or head troubles with you?”

He laughed.

“I am inclined to believe that the gravest diagnosis is the correct one.”

“But how about the present Mrs. Harlson?”

No friend less close than I could have asked such a question.  I almost repented it myself, when I noted the look which came upon the man’s face after its utterance.