When Gage had been sent at twelve years of age to a boys’ military preparatory school, it had been definitely done to “harden him.” He was a dreamy little boy, not in the least delicate, but with a roving imagination, a tendency to say “queer things” which had not suited his healthy perfectly grown body, his father felt. Some one had suspected him of having hidden artistic abilities. His parents were intelligent people and they tried that out. He was given instructions in music on the piano and the violin. Nothing came of them but ridges on the piano where he had kicked it in his impatience at being able to draw no melodies from it. With infinite patience they tried to see if he had talent for drawing. He had none. So, having exhausted their researches for artistic talent, his parents decided that there was a flaw in his make-up which a few years contact with “more manly boys” might correct. They prided themselves on the result. He succumbed utterly to all the conventions of what makes a manly boy and came home true to form. In college the quirk came out again once in a while. But Gage never became markedly queer. Impossible for an all-American half-back to do that. And he never mixed with the “queer ones.” What eccentricities he had, what flights of imagination he took were strictly on his own. In due course he was admitted to the bar and on the heels of that came Helen. Those who saw him in his pursuit of Helen said that he seemed possessed. For once his imagination had found an outlet. For once all those desires which rose above his daily life and his usual companions had found a channel through which they could pour themselves. Eager for life as Helen was, full of dreams, independences, fresh from her years at college, she could not help being swept under by the torrent of desire and worship that he became. They soared away together--they lost themselves in marriage, in the marvel of child creation.