a definite form.  She expelled it.  It would come again in some form or other.  She was indignant at herself as she thought of it.  How odd it was!  Her privacy had been invaded.  The even tenor of her life had been broken.  Henceforth would she be less or more sensitive to the suggestion of love, to the allurements of ambition?  Margaret tried, in accordance with her nature, to be sincere with herself.

After all, what nonsense it was!  Nothing really had happened.  A stranger of a few weeks before had declared himself.  She did not love him; he was no more to her than any other man.  It was a common occurrence.  Her judgment accorded with her feeling in what she had done.  How was she to know that she had made a mistake, if mistake it was?  How was she to know that this hour was a crisis in her life?  Surely the little tumult would pass; surely the little whisper of worldliness could not disturb her ideals.  But all the power of exclusion in her mind could not exclude the returning thought of what might have been if she had loved him.  Alas! in that moment was born in her heart something that would make the idea of love less simple than it had been in her mind.  She was heart-free, but her nature was too deep not to be profoundly affected by this experience.

Looking back upon this afternoon in the light of after-years, she probably could not feel—­no one could say—­that she had done wrong.  How was she to tell?  Why is it that to do the right thing is often to make the mistake of a life?  Nothing could have been nobler than for Margaret indignantly to put aside a temptation that her heart told her was unworthy.  And yet if she had yielded to it?

I ought to ask pardon, perhaps, for dwelling upon a thing so slight as the entrance of a thought in a woman’s life.  For as to Margaret, she seemed unchanged.  She made no sign that anything unusual had occurred.  We only knew that Mr. Lyon went away less cheerful than he usually was, that he said nothing of returning in response to our invitations, and that he seemed to anticipate nothing but the fulfillment of a duty in his visit to Washington.

What had happened was regarded as only an episode.  In fact, however, I doubt if there are any episodes in our lives, any asides, that do not permanently affect our entire career.  Are not the episodes, the casual thoughts, the fortuitous, unplanned meetings, the brief and maybe at the moment unnoted events, those which exercise the most influence on our destiny?  To all observation the career of Lyon, and not of Margaret, was most affected by their interview.  But often the implanting of an idea in the mind is more potent than the frustration of a plan or the gratification of a desire, so hidden are the causes that make character.