"There is nothing more to tell you about, except that your progress makes me very happy. You are doing only what you would ultimately have done without any impudent advice from me. You have found yourself, Jim; you are climbing the rungs very quickly. "Jim, I am not yet very old—but I might easily be younger.... I was thinking the other day—and to-night—that sometime I shall be too old and unattractive to practice this not very dignified profession; and I’m disinclined to do anything more strenuous. I don’t want to struggle and grub and starve along respectably as a feminine physician. It’s too late for that, anyway. "So I don’t know what to do, ultimately, unless I accomplish what I started out to do—marry a wealthy man. I mean the first agreeable one I encounter. "Well, I won’t bother with that problem to-night; my head aches a little. "Good night, Jim. "JAPONETTE." Diana finished her letter, sealed and stamped it, and kissed the superscription. She always did when she wrote his name. Then she laid her aching temples on her arms and, leaning limply on the desk, thought about him. Hers was a strange, sweet pride in him—a fierce jealousy lest he should not take the place in the world to which he was entitled, and prove himself every inch a man. Nor did she pretend to hide from herself what his return among his own friends must ultimately mean. If the love he had offered her had not been totally extinguished by her light mockery and smiling insolence, then this return to his own set would do it ultimately. The standards that measured women there would be fatal to her; nor could he choose but apply them, sooner or later. She knew this when she sent him back among his own sort. She realized perfectly that if any love for her survived her irony and flippancy—her airy but trenchant scorn—it could not survive very long when he came to his cool-headed and reasoning self, and looked around him at the women, and at the families and relatives of the women among whom he had always lived. Already he had spoken of little Aliss Ellis—a mere child, of course—yet—yet it was a straw prophesying a change in the wind to her. She knew; she had accomplished what she had desired. She had done this thing to herself, to her whole life, for his sake. What more could she wish for? Sick at heart, she lifted her throbbing head and kissed his name once more where she had written it on the envelope. Then she placed it on the desk, and lay down on the bed to wait for Silvette before ringing for the maid who attended them; and after a little while she fell asleep. *CHAPTER XII* *NUNC AUT NUNQUAM* Warm weather continued; no flight occurred. The men thrashed about with the dogs after grouse and a few native woodcock bred in the willows along the river, or rode, motored, and played cards. One or two had to give up, and return to the city.