Farwell rolled protesting eyes toward heaven. "The very suggestion shocks me," he murmured. "But I have noticed that only the juice of the orange interests you, old man. The rest of it you leave on your plate, luxurious chap that you are!..." His warning had its effect. There were no more stolen drives about the country in Farwell's automobiles, much to Jacqueline's disappointment; and once more Channing called in state at Storm, where he was received cordially by Mrs. Kildare, and took very little notice of demure Jacqueline in the background. So little, indeed, that Kate afterwards felt it necessary to apologize for him. "You're too young for Mr. Channing, Jacky dear. What a pity Jemima was not here to talk to him! He's just the sort of man for her," she said. Whereat Jacqueline's dimples became riotous, and she kept silence with difficulty. Channing's new caution, however, did not carry him to the length of giving up his daily visits to the Ruin. He needed the girl too much. His belonged to the class of creative brain that works only under the stimulus of emotion. Channing was fond of saying that he took his material red-hot out of life itself, and his novels represented a series of personal experiences, psychological and otherwise, which perhaps accounted for their marked success with a certain public. Channing was not without genius. He had to a great degree the poet's sensitiveness to all things exquisite, and added to that he had a gift of facile expression. Subtleties of style, that effort to find exactly the right phrase and shade of meaning which is the stumbling-block of so many conscientious writers, troubled him not at all. Given the sensation, words in which to clothe it came instinctively, faster often than he could write them down. But first he must needs experience the sensation. This type of brain suffers from one disadvantage. In time the receptive surface of it becomes dulled, calloused, and as the confirmed drug-user requires constantly increasing or varying doses to produce effect, so such an imagination requires constantly increasing or varying doses of emotion. These young Jacqueline Kildare was supplying in full measure. To his sophisticated palate she was as refreshing as cool spring water. She roused, among impulses more familiar to his experience, certain others with which he had not credited himself, impulses of tenderness, of protection, of chivalry. He began to be aware of a pleasure that was entirely new to him in the sight of Jacqueline with Mag's baby, their very frequent companion. "I _am_ getting primitive!" he thought. "This is going back to nature with a vengeance." For the first time in his life, the thought of marriage came to him occasionally and was put away with some regret. "I must not lose my head," he admonished himself. "It will not last, of course. It never does." Channing knew himself very thoroughly.