"Futile, Roger! Absolutely futile. In my heart even then, I think, I believed you narrow. You see, I'm frank. A few months in the world hasn't changed my opinion. But I do want to think straight." And then with a sigh as he paused alongside of me, "It's very perplexing sometimes." I knew what he was thinking about and whom, but he would not speak. "You have thought me narrow, Jerry, because I laid my life and yours along pleasant byways and ignored the beaten track. I've never told you why the world had grown distasteful to me. I think you ought to know. It may be worth something to you. The old story, always new--a girl, pretty, insincere. I was just out of the University, with a good education, some prospects, but no money. We became engaged. She was going to wait for me until I got a good professorship. But she didn't. In less than a year, without even the formality of breaking the engagement, she suddenly married a man who had money, a manufacturer of gas engines in Taunton, Massachusetts. I won't go into the details. They're rather sickening from this distance. But I thought you might like to know why I've never particularly cared to trust women." "I supposed," he said, thoughtfully, "it might have been something like that. Women _are_ queer. You think you know them, and then--" He paused, confession hovering on his lips, but some delicacy restrained him. "Women, Jerry, are the flavoring of society; I regret that I have a poor digestion for sauces. I hope yours will be better." He laughed. "Poor Roger; was she _very_ pretty?" "I can't remember. Probably. Calf love seldom considers anything else--prettiness! Yes she was pretty." "How old were you?" "Older than you Jerry--and wiser." He was silent. Once I thought he was about to speak, but he refrained, and when he deftly turned the topic, I knew that any chance I might have had to help him had passed. I understood, of course, and I could not help respecting his delicacy. Jerry was in for some hard knocks, I feared, harder ones than Clancy had given him. He went to bed presently and I sat by the lamp alternately reading and thinking of Jerry, comparing him with myself in that long-distant romance of my own. They were not unlike, these two women, pretty little self-worshipers, born to deceit and chicanery, with clever talents for concealing their ignorance, hiding the emptiness of their hearts with pretty tricks of coquetry. But Marcia was the more dangerous, a clean body and an unclean mind. A half-virgin! I would have given much to know what had recently passed between Marcia and Jerry. If there was any way to bring about a disillusionment-- As though in answer to my enigma, at this moment Christopher came down from Jerry's room on his way below stairs. I stopped him and taking him into my study closed the door. "You're very fond of Master Jerry, Christopher?" I asked. "Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Canby." "So am I, Christopher. I think you know that, don't you?"