been taken from me—­except such grim satisfaction as a physician may feel at a post mortem.  The very labor that made me a success in literature caused me to be a dissector of things around me.  To learn how others attained their ends I must needs tear their work apart and study the fragments.  This habit has become a part of me.  I overlook the beauty of the product in the working of the machinery that produced it.  I watch the mixing of literary confections, served to the reader so that upon laying down the book he may have a good taste in his mouth.  People themselves, those I meet from day to day, inevitably go through the same metamorphosis.  I see them as characters in a book.  Their foibles and peculiarities are grist for my mill.  Everything, everyone, when I appear, slips into the narrow confines of a printed page.  I can’t even spare myself.  Fragments of me can be had for a price at any of the book-stalls.  I’ve become public property—­and with no one to blame but myself.”

The flow of speech halted.  The speaker’s face was so near now that the girl could not avoid looking at it.

“Do you wonder,” he concluded, “that I am not happy?”

The girl looked up.  The two pairs of brown eyes met.  Outwardly, she who answered was calm; but in her lap the small hands were clasping each other tightly, so that the blood had left the fingers.

“No, I do not wonder now,” she answered simply.

“And you understand?”

“Yes, I—­no, there’s so much—­Oh, take me home, please!” The sentence ended abruptly in a plea.  The slender body was trembling as with cold.  “Take me home, please.  I want to—­to think.”

“Florence!” The word was a caress.  “Florence!”

But the girl was already on her feet.  “Don’t say any more to-day!  I can’t stand it.  Take me home!”

Sidwell looked at her closely for a moment; then the mask of conventionality, which for a time had lifted from his face, dropped once more, and he also arose.  In silence, side by side, the two made their way down the long hall to the exit.  Out of doors, the afternoon sun, serene and smiling, gave them a friendly greeting.

CHAPTER XIX

A VISITOR FROM THE PLAINS

“Papa,” said Florence, next morning, as they two sat alone at breakfast, her mother having reported a headache and failed to appear, “let’s go somewhere, away from folks, for a week or so.”

“Why this sudden change of front?” her father queried.  “Not being of the enemy I’m entitled to the plan of campaign, you know.”

Florence observed him steadily, and the father could not but notice how much more mature she seemed than the prairie girl of a few months ago.

“There is no change of front or plan of campaign as far as I know,” she replied.  “I simply want to get away a bit, that’s all.”  She returned to her neglected breakfast.  “There’s such a thing as mental dyspepsia, you know, and I feel a twinge of it now and then.  I think this new life is being fed to me in doses too large for my digestion.”