Her mind reverted now to the heart of things. In the first place, Selma Cross would not intentionally lie. She asked so little of men--and had asked less a few years ago--that to have her call one "cad" with an adjective, was a characterscape, indeed. That she had intimately known Quentin Charter three years before, was unsettling in itself.... True, he made no pretensions to a righteous past. All his work suggested utter delvings into life. He had even hinted a background that was black-figured and restlessly stirring, but she had believed that he wrote these things in the same spirit which prompted the ascetic Thoreau to say, "I have never met a worse man than myself." She believed that the evils of sense were not so complicated, but that genius can fathom them without suffering their defilement. His whole present, as depicted in his letters, was a song--bright as his open prairies, and pure as the big lakes of his country.... Could she become reconciled to extended periods of physical abandonment in the Charter-past? Faintly her heart answered, but quickly, "Yes, if they are forever nameless...." "Specific abandonments?" Her mind pinned her heart to this, with the added sentence, "Is it fair for you not to hear what Selma Cross has to say--and what Quentin Charter may add?..." The elevator-man was at the door with further letters. He did not ring, because it was so early. Softly, she went into the hall. There was an accumulation of mail upon the floor--two from _The States_; one from Charter.... This last was opened after a struggle. It must have been one of those just brought, for it was dated, the day before yesterday, and she usually received his letters the second morning. Indeed, this had been written on the very afternoon that she had penned her agony. I know I shall be sorry that I have permitted you to find me in a black mood like this, but I feel that I must tell you. A sense of isolation, altogether new, since first your singing came, flooded over me this afternoon. It is as though the invisible connections between us were deranged--as if there had been a storm and the wires were down. It began about noon, when the thought of the extreme youth of my soul, beside yours, began to oppress me. I perceived that my mind is imperiously active rather than humbly wise; that I am capable of using a few thoughts flashily, instead of being great-souled from rich and various ages. Ordinarily, I should be grateful for the gifts I have, and happy in the bright light from you--but this last seems turned away. Won't you let me hear at once, please?