“He was a poor, cheap sort of a creature. Deplorably smart, and regrettably handsome. A fellow that assimilated everything to a certain extent, and nothing thoroughly. A fellow with no more moral nature than a base-ball The sort of chap you'd expect to find, the next time you met him, in Congress or the house of correction.” “Yes, that accounts for it,” said Atherton, thoughtfully. “Accounts for what?” “The sort of look she had. A look as if she were naturally above him, and had somehow fascinated herself with him, and were worshipping him in some sort of illusion.” “Doesn't that sound a little like refining upon the facts? Recollect: I've never seen her, and I don't say you're wrong.” “I'm not sure I'm not, though. I talked with her, and found her nothing more than honest and sensible and good; simple in her traditions, of course, and countrified yet, in her ideas, with a tendency to the intensely practical. I don't see why she mightn't very well be his wife. I suppose every woman hoodwinks herself about her husband in some degree.” “Yes; and we always like to fancy something pathetic in the fate of pretty girls that other fellows marry. I notice that we don't sorrow much over the plain ones. How's the divine Clara?” “I believe she's well,” said Atherton. “I haven't seen her, all summer. She's been at Beverley.” “Why, I should have supposed she would have come up and surf-bathed those indigent children with her own hand. She's equal to it. What made her falter in well-doing?” “I don't know that we can properly call it faltering. There was a deficit in the appropriation necessary, and she made it up herself. After that, she consulted me seriously as to whether she ought not to stay in town and superintend the execution of the plan. But I told her she might fitly delegate that. She was all the more anxious to perform her whole duty, because she confessed that indigent children were personally unpleasant to her.” Halleck burst out laughing. “That's like Clara! How charming women are! They're charming even in their goodness! I wonder the novelists don't take a hint from that fact, and stop giving us those scaly heroines they've been running lately. Why, a real woman can make righteousness delicious and virtue piquant. I like them for that!” “Do you?” asked Atherton, laughing in his turn at the single-minded confession. He was some years older than his friend. They had got down to Charles Street, and Halleck took out his watch at the corner lamp. “It isn't at all late yet,--only half-past eight. The days are getting shorter.” “Well?” “Suppose we go and call on Hubbard now? He's right up here on Clover Street!” “I don't know,” said Atherton. “It would do for you; you're an old friend. But for me,--wouldn't it be rather unceremonious?” “Oh, come along! They'll not be punctilious. They'll like our dropping in, and I shall have Hubbard off my conscience. I must go to see him sooner or later, for decency's sake.”