She knew that. But she had counted on John Ralston with that singularly whole-hearted faith which characterizes very refined women. Many years ago, when analytical fiction was in its infancy, Charles de Bernard made the very wise and true observation that no women abandon themselves more completely in thought and deed to the men they love, or make such real slaves of themselves, as those whom he calls ‘great ladies,’--that is, as we should say, women of the highest refinement, the most unassailable social position, and the most rigid traditions. The remark is a very profound one. The explanation of the fact is very simple. Women who have grown up in surroundings wherein the letter of honour is rigidly observed, and in which the spirit of virtue prevails for honour’s sake, readily believe that the men they love are as honourable as they seem, and more virtuous in all ways than sinful man is likely to be. The man whom such a woman loves with all her heart, before she has met truth face to face, cannot possibly be as worthy as she imagines that he is; and if he be an honest man, he must be aware of the fact, and must constantly suffer by the ever present knowledge that he is casting a shadow greater than himself, so to say--and to push the simile further, it is true that in attempting to overtake that shadow of himself, he often deliberately walks away from the light which makes him cast it. John Ralston could never, under any circumstances, have done all that Katharine had expected of him, although she had professed to expect so little. Woman fills the hours of her lover’s absence with scenes from her own sweet dreamland. In nine cases out of ten, when she has the chance of comparing what she has learned with what she has imagined, she has a moment of sickening disappointment. Later in life there is an adjustment, and at forty years of age she merely warns her daughter vaguely that she must not believe too much in men. That is the usual sequence of events.