At bottom really he had always been slow, romantic, philosophic, meditative, while trying in the main to appear something else, whereas these other men, those who were so successful with women at least, were hard and gay and quick and thoughtless, or so he thought. They said and did things more by instinct than he ever could, were successful—well, just because they were what they were. You couldn’t do those things by just trying to. And gay, pretty, fascinating women, such as Idelle or Jessica, the really worthwhile ones, seemed to realize this instinctively and to like that kind and no other. When they found a sober and reflective man like himself, or one even inclined to be, they drew away from him. Yes, they did; not consciously always, but just instinctively. They wanted only men who tingled and sparkled and glittered like themselves. To think that love must always go by blind instinct instead of merit—genuine, adoring passion! * * * * * _This must be Phillipsburg coming into view! He couldn’t mistake that high, round water tower!_ * * * * * Ah, the tragedy of seeing and knowing this and not being able to remedy it, of not being able to make oneself over into something like that! Somehow, Jessica had been betrayed by his bog-fire resemblance to the thing which she took him to be. He was a bog fire and nothing more, in so far as she was concerned, all she thought he was. Yet because he was so hungry, no doubt, for a woman of her type he had pretended that he was “the real thing,” as she so liked to describe a gay character, a man of habits, bad or good, as you choose; one who liked to gamble, shoot, race, and do a lot of things which he really did not care for at all, but which the crowd or group with which he was always finding himself, or with whom he hoped to appear as somebody, was always doing and liking. * * * * * _These poor countrymen, always loitering about their village stations!_ * * * * * And the women they ran with were just like them, like Jessica, like Idelle—smart, showy and liked that sort of man—and so— Well, he had pretended to be all that and more, when she (Jessica) had appeared out of that gay group, petite, blonde (Idelle was darker), vivacious, drawn to him by his seeming reality as a man of the world and a gay cavalier. She had actually fallen in love with him at sight, as it were, or seemed to be at the time—she!—and then, see what had happened! Those awful months in G—— after she had returned with him! The agonies of mind and body! * * * * * _If only that stout traveling man in that gray suit would cease staring at him! It must be the horn-rimmed glasses he had on which interested him so! These mid-Western people!_ * * * * *