Recognizing the characters in "The Difference" as types drawn from an earlier story, MacDonald discusses the way Glasgow uses them in the later story to illustrate how "the doubleness of male adultery is the counterpart of female ambivalence."

Henry Anderson is nowhere apparent in "Whispering Leaves," but he is very much present in "The Difference," which appeared in the June issue of Harper's. Six years after writing the happy "Thinking Makes it So," Glasgow saw there was a better story to be extracted from the materials of the earlier effort. Vardah and Harold had really been a companionable study team, a "marriage of true minds," rather than a dalliance in the garden. "The Difference" is perfectly plotted, a series of scenes in which the central character learns something about herself, a novel in miniature. A cataloging of external details is limited to a few poetic images carrying...