Muriel puzzled thoughtfully awhile over the rather grim pair she had come into contact with. She had known very little of that great wide world of professional life. Society and the slums, though they were a great contrast, were not, she thought, so great a mystery. But though Muriel was distinctly broad-minded for a woman, it was impossible for her just at present to absorb herself in abstract problems when her own life presented such pressing personal ones. Her first misery at Gladys’ jealousy and misunderstanding seemed gone. To her surprise she had begun to feel almost a sense of relief. If she didn’t understand, it was plain there was not so very much to worry about. If one looks for too many things in one place, the few things one finds lose their significance. It is not one’s love so much that gets dulled as one’s sense of importance. The halo of expectation fails; next time one’s eagerness goes with slower feet, and is positively astonished if it ever gets met at all. So that now Muriel felt she had simply over-estimated both her friends’ characters and affection, and that nothing therefore remained but to clearly make Gladys see she did not intend to marry Jack Hurstly. Her responsibility ended there she told herself, after that she need not try to keep up this very unequal friendship any more. As for Cynthia Grant, she was a woman and old enough to know what to take for granted, and how not to be exacting. CHAPTER X “O Heart! O blood that freezes! blood that burns! Earth’s returns for whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin: Shut them in; with their triumphs and the glories and the rest— Love is best!” —ROBERT BROWNING.