“Fernald was plumb out of his head about her. His own wife had been dead some years. Nothing would do but she must run away with him. Well――――” “Did the lady live here?” asked Winthrop. “Godamighty, no, sir! We don’t breed that kind here, sir! She lived in New Orleans; her husband was a cotton factor there. Well, Fernald begged her to run away with him, and after a lot of hemming and hawing she consented. They made an appointment for one night and Fernald was there waiting. But the lady didn’t come. After awhile he went back to his hotel and found a note. She was sorry, but her husband had bought tickets for the opera for that evening. Eh? What? There was soul for you, Mr. Winthrop!” Winthrop nodded. “So the lover blew his brains out, eh?” “Shot a hole in his chest; amounted to about the same thing, I reckon,” answered the Major, gloomily. “Now what do you think of a woman that’ll do a thing like that?” “Well, I don’t know but what a good opera is to be preferred to an elopement,” answered Winthrop. “There, there, Major, I don’t mean to be flippant. The fact is we hear of so many of these ‘crimes of passion’ up our way nowadays that we take them with the same equanimity that we take the weather predictions. The woman was just a good sample of her sort as the man was doubtless a good sample of his. He was lucky to be out of it, only he didn’t realize it and so killed himself. That’s the deuce of it, you see, Major; a man who can look a thousand fathoms into a woman’s eyes and keep his judgment from slipping a cog is――well, he just isn’t; he doesn’t exist! And if he did you and I, Major, wouldn’t have anything to do with him.” “Shucks!” grunted the Major, half in agreement, half in protest. “But I hope this boy won’t follow his father’s lead, just the same,” said Winthrop. “No, no,” answered the Major, energetically; “he won’t, he won’t. He――he’s better fitted for hard knocks than his dad was. I――we had just had a few words and I was――ah――displeased. Shall we join the ladies inside, Mr. Winthrop?”