"No!" he exclaimed. "No! No!" This time she did not cower before the passion in his face. She looked at him steadily, although her eyes were heavy. "Ah!" she said at last. "I am glad you know. It seemed to me a wicked waste of myself that you should not. And if you do--the rest does not matter so much. For the matter of that, life is always making sport of its ultimates. The most perfect dream is the dream that never comes true." He did not answer for a moment, but when he did he had recovered himself completely. "That is true enough," he said. "We who have lived and thought know that. But there never was a man so strong as to choose the dream when Reality cast off her shackles and beckoned. Imagination we regard as a compensation, not as the supreme gift. The wise never hate it, however, as the failures so often do. For what it gives let us be as thankful as the poet in his garret. If we awake in the morning to find rain when we vividly had anticipated sunshine, it is only the common mind who would regret the compensation of the dream." XXI Jack had almost finished his breakfast when Betty entered the dining-room. He looked beyond her with the surprised and sulky frown of the neglected husband. "Where on earth is Harriet?" he asked. "Her natural inclination is to lie in bed all day. What induced her--" "She wanted to go to the camp-meeting," said Betty, not without apprehension. "You know she always went with her adopted father, who was a Methodist clergyman--" "Great heaven!" Her apprehension was justified. His face was convulsed with disgust. "My wife at a camp-meeting! And you let her go?" "Harriet is not sixteen. And when a person has been brought up to a thing, you cannot expect her to change completely in a few months. Poor Harriet lived in a forsaken village where she had no sort of society; I suppose the camp-meeting was her only excitement. And you know how emotionally religious the--the Methodists are--You glare at me so I scalded my throat." "I am sorry, and I am afraid I have been rude. But you must--you must know how distasteful it is for me to think of my wife at a camp-meeting. Great heaven!" "It is even worse than my going over to politics, isn't it? Don't take it so tragically, my dear. The truth is, I suspect, Harriet worries about having deceived Molly and me, and the camp-meeting is probably to the Methodist what the confessional is to the Catholic. Both must ease one's mind a lot." "Harriet will have to ease her mind in some other way in the future. And it will be some time before I can forget this." "Thank heaven I am not married. Are you going after her? Shall you march her home by the ear?" "I certainly shall not go after her--that is, if she is in no danger. Where is this camp-meeting?"