But as she sat here this morning this did not seem to be so simple a matter as it had appeared.  It began to be suspected that in order to make the most of one’s self it was necessary to make the most of many other persons and things.  The stream in its own channel flowed along not without vexations, friction and foaming and dashings from bank to bank; but it became quite another and a more difficult movement when it was joined to another stream, with its own currents and eddies and impetuosities and sluggishness, constantly liable to be deflected if not put altogether on another course.  Edith was not putting it in this form as she turned over her notes of invitation and appointments and engagements, but simply wondering where the time for her life was to come in, and for Jack’s life, which occupied a much larger space than it seemed to occupy in the days before it was joined to hers.  Very curious this discovery of what another’s life really is.  Of course the society life must go on, that had always gone on, for what purpose no one could tell, only it was the accepted way of disposing of time; and now there were the dozen ways in which she was solicited to show her interest in those supposed to be less fortunate in life than herself-the alleviation of the miseries of her own city.  And with society, and charity, and sympathy with the working classes, and her own reading, and a little drawing and painting, for which she had some talent, what became of that comradeship with Jack, that union of interests and affections, which was to make her life altogether so high and sweet?

This reverie, which did not last many minutes, and was interrupted by the abrupt moving away of Edith to the writing-desk in her own room, was caused by a moment’s vivid realization of what Jack’s interests in life were.  Could she possibly make them her own?  And if she did, what would become of her own ideals?

III

It was indeed a busy day for Jack.  Great injustice would be done him if it were supposed that he did not take himself and his occupations seriously.  His mind was not disturbed by trifles.  He knew that he had on the right sort of four-in-hand necktie, with the appropriate pin of pear-shaped pearl, and that he carried the cane of the season.  These things come by a sort of social instinct, are in the air, as it were, and do not much tax the mind.  He had to hasten a little to keep his half-past-eleven o’clock appointment at Stalker’s stables, and when he arrived several men of his set were already waiting, who were also busy men, and had made a little effort to come round early and assist Jack in making up his mind about the horse.

When Mr. Stalker brought out Storm, and led him around to show his action, the connoisseurs took on a critical attitude, an attitude of judgment, exhibited not less in the poise of the head and the serious face than in the holding of the cane and the planting of legs wide apart.  And the attitude had a refined nonchalance which professional horsemen scarcely ever attain.  Storm could not have received more critical and serious attention if he had been a cooked terrapin.  He could afford to stand this scrutiny, and he seemed to move about with the consciousness that he knew more about being a horse than his judges.