He was glad on the whole that his was the part to mold. Nevertheless, he had his inconsistencies. Unlike many men of strong will and driving purpose he liked strength of character and pronounced individuality in women; and he, too, had had fleeting visions of what life might have been had Flora Thornton entered life twenty years later. He had been quite sincere in telling her that the young stranger reminded him of the most powerful personality he had met in California, and he believed that within a reasonable time Helene would be as variously cultivated, as widely, if less erratically developed. But was there any such insurgent force in her depths? It was not within the possibilities that at any time in her life Flora Thornton had been pliable. A man had little time to study his wife in California these days. Or at any time? He sometimes wondered. Certainly happy marriages were rare and divorces many. Fine weather nearly all the year round played the deuce with domesticity, and his business could not be neglected for the long vacation abroad to which they both had looked forward so ardently. Sometimes, even before this vague gray mist had risen between them, he had had moments of wondering whether he knew his wife at all. How could a man know a woman who did not yet know herself? He sighed and wished he had more time to explore the uncharted seas of a woman's soul. But the cause of the change in her was something far less picturesque, something concrete and sinister. He felt sure of that.... VII Unless--but that was ridiculous! Impossible! He sprang to his feet, incredulous, disgusted at the mere thought. But why not? She was very young, and older and wiser women were afflicted with inconsistencies, little tenacious desires and vanities never quite to be grasped by the elemental male. He went over to a bookcase containing heavy works of reference and pressed his index finger into the molding. It swung outward, revealing the door of a safe. He manipulated the combination, took from a drawer of the interior a box, opened it and stared at a magnificent Burmah ruby. It was or had been a royal jewel, presented to Masewell Price by one of the great princes of India whose portrait he had painted. The pearls had all been captured long since by Price's sisters and by Morgan V. for his wife; but this ruby his mother had given him as she lay dying. She had bidden him leave it in his father's safe until he was out of college, and then keep it as closely in his personal possession as possible. It would be turned over to him with the rest of his private fortune. "Never let any woman wear it," she had whispered. "It brings luck to men but not to women. Nothing could have affected my luck one way or the other--I was born to have nothing I wanted, but you, dear little boy. Keep it for your luck and in a safe place, but near you."