Archie had suffered a blow but he was meeting it bravely. Having believed that Isabel had given him this same advice quite spontaneously, it was with a shock that he realized that she had offered it in similar terms to Congdon. There was no question as to the identity of the girl who had bidden Congdon plant his back to the wall and defy the world; no one but Isabel would ever have done that. "And this young woman," Archie asked after a long glance at the lake, "pardon me if I ask whether she affected you in a sentimental way? Did you well, er--" "If you mean am I in love with her," began Congdon, "I believe I can say honestly that it hardly amounts to that. And yet she made a curious impression on me. You know how it is, Comly! A man may love his wife with all his heart and soul and he may mean to be awfully square with her; and yet there may be a face or a voice now and then that will, well, you know, make him wobble a little. I did think about that girl a lot; it was damned funny how I thought of her. She'd pop up in my mind when I had absolutely willed that I would never think of her again. And yet the more I resolved to get her out of my mind the more stubbornly she'd keep coming into my thoughts. "I suppose in a way it was my pride; I hated to think that a girl as pretty and clever and attractive as she is thought me a contemptible, slinking coward. We all want to be heroes to women; it's one of the damned weaknesses of our sex, Comly. I'd ceased to be a hero to my wife, who's the gentlest and most long suffering woman alive, but this other woman rather gave me hope that I might qualify for the finals in _her_ eyes. Now, Comly, I see that you're a steady-going fellow; never thrown off your balance; not a chap to be made a fool of by a girl who amuses herself at your expense at a dinner party. I wish you'd tell me frankly just what you think of this?" "I'd say," replied Archie, attempting to meet this demand with a philosophic air, "I'd say that the girl probably played the game on every man she thought she could impose on. Merely a part of her social technique; a stunt, so to speak, which she'd found would make us weak males sit up and take notice. If I were you I'd clean forget the whole business; on the other hand there's the suspicion that you appealed to her strongly, a girlish fancy, perhaps, and she thought you were the sort of fellow that would be hit harder if she roused you to action. I tell you, Congdon, women are curious creatures. Just when you think you've got your hand on a pretty bird she flutters away and sings merrily in another part of the wood." "Right!" ejaculated Congdon. "By George, that expresses it exactly!" "About your child, up there in Michigan," said Archie, pleased that he was scoring as a man of wisdom, "it's wholly possible that your wife sent you the wire as an approach to a reconciliation."