As to that, I can't say. Perhaps it did. Life is not so simple as Henry had been taught it was. I am fatalist enough to believe that Henry would have become what he was to become in any event, because it was in him. I doubt if he could have been given any other direction. Though of course he might have gone under simply through a failure to get aroused. Something had to start him, of course. The practical difficulty with Henry's life was, of course, that he was strong. He didn't know this himself. He thought he was weak. Some who observed him thought the same. There were reasons enough. But Mildred always declared flatly that he was a genius, that he was too good for Sunbury, against the smugness of which community she was inclined to rail. A debate on this point between Mrs Henderson and, say, William F. Donovan, the drug store man, would have been interesting. Mr Donovan's judgments of human character were those of Simpson Street. I say Henry was strong, because I can't interpret his rugged nonconformity in any other way. A weaker lad would long since have given up, gone into Smith Brothers' wholesale, taken his spiritual beating and fallen into step with his generation. But Henry's resistance was so strong and so deep that he didn't even know he was resisting. He was doing the only thing he could do, being what he was, feeling what he felt. And when instinct failed to guide, when 'the Power' lay quiescent, he was simply waiting and blundering along; but never falling into step. He had to wait until the Power should rise with him and take him out and up where he belonged. There was a little scene the Monday evening before. It was in the rooms. Mildred was there. Henry stumbled in on the two of them, Mildred and Humphrey. They were at the piano, seated side by side. They had been studying _Tristan and Isolde_ together for a week or so; Mildred playing out the motifs. She often played the love duet from the second act for him, too. Henry heard him, mornings, trying to hum it while he shaved. They insisted that he take a chair. He, with a sense of intrusion, took the arm of one, and kept hat and stick (his thin bamboo) in his hands. Mildred said reflectively:-- 'Corinne writes that she'll be back for a week late in August.' Then, noting the touch of dismay on Henry's ingenuous countenance, she added, 'But you mustn't have her on your conscience, Henry.' 'It isn't that----' 'I'm fond of Corinne. But I can see now that you two would never get on long together. In a queer way you're too much alike. At least, you both have positive qualities. Corinne will some day find a nice little husband who'll look after the business side of her concerts. And you--well, Henry, you've got to have some one to mother you.' She smiled at him thoughtfully. 'Some one you can make a lot of.' 'No.' Henry's colour was up. He was shaking his head. 'You don't understand. I'm through with girls. They're nothing in my life. Nothing!'