“It’s a dream, Hugh,” she sighed.  “But—­do you think we can afford it?"...

“This house,” I announced, smiling, “is only a stepping-stone to the palace I intend to build you some day.”

“I don’t want a palace!” she cried.  “I’d rather live here, like this, always.”

A certain vehemence in her manner troubled me.  I was charmed by this disposition for domesticity, and yet I shrank from the contemplation of its permanency.  I felt vaguely, at the time, the possibility of a future conflict of temperaments.  Maude was docile, now.  But would she remain docile? and was it in her nature to take ultimately the position that was desirable for my wife?  Well, she must be moulded, before it were too late.  Her ultra-domestic tendencies must be halted.  As yet blissfully unaware of the inability of the masculine mind to fathom the subtleties of feminine relationships, I was particularly desirous that Maude and Nancy Durrett should be intimates.  The very day after our arrival, and while we were still at my mother’s, Nancy called on Maude, and took her out for a drive.  Maude told me of it when I came home from the office.

“Dear old Nancy!” I said.  “I know you liked her.”

“Of course, Hugh.  I should like her for your sake, anyway.  She’s—­she’s one of your oldest and best friends.”

“But I want you to like her for her own sake.”

“I think I shall,” said Maude.  She was so scrupulously truthful!  “I was a little afraid of her, at first.”

“Afraid of Nancy!” I exclaimed.

“Well, you know, she’s much older than I. I think she is sweet.  But she knows so much about the world—­so much that she doesn’t say.  I can’t describe it.”

I smiled.

“It’s only her manner.  You’ll get used to that, when you know what she really is.”

“Oh, I hope so,” answered Maude.  “I’m very anxious to like her—­I do like her.  But it takes me such a lot of time to get to know people.”

Nancy asked us to dinner.

“I want to help Maude all I can,—­if she’ll let me,” Nancy said.

“Why shouldn’t she let you?” I asked.

“She may not like me,” Nancy replied.

“Nonsense!” I exclaimed.

Nancy smiled.

“It won’t be my fault, at any rate, if she doesn’t,” she said.  “I wanted her to meet at first just the right people your old friends and a few others.  It is hard for a woman—­especially a young woman—­coming among strangers.”  She glanced down the table to where Maude sat talking to Ham.  “She has an air about her,—­a great deal of self-possession.”

I, too, had noticed this, with pride and relief.  For I knew Maude had been nervous.

“You are luckier than you deserve to be,” Nancy reminded me.  “But I hope you realize that she has a mind of her own, that she will form her own opinions of people, independently of you.”

I must have betrayed the fact that I was a little startled, for the remark came as a confirmation of what I had dimly felt.