Could it be that Dory's love had become--no, not less, but less ardent? She saw that he was deep in thought--about her, she assumed, with an unconscious vanity which would have excited the mockery of many who have more vanity than had she, and perhaps with less excuse. In fact, he was not thinking of her; having the ability to turn his mind completely where he willed--the quality of all strong men, and the one that often makes the weak-willed think them hard--he was revolving the vast and inspiring plans Arthur and he had just got into practical form--plans for new factories and mills such as a university, professing to be in the forefront of progress need not be ashamed to own or to offer to its students as workshops. All that science has bestowed in the way of making labor and its surroundings clean and comfortable, healthful and attractive, was to be provided; all that the ignorance and the shortsighted greediness of employers, bent only on immediate profits and keeping their philanthropy for the smug penuriousness and degrading stupidity of charity, deny to their own self-respect and to justice for their brothers in their power. Arthur and he had wrought it all out, had discovered as a crowning vindication that the result would be profitable in dollars, that their sane and shrewd utopianism would produce larger dividends than the sordid and slovenly methods of their competitors. "It is always so. Science is always economical as well as enlightened and humane," Dory was thinking when Adelaide's voice broke into his reverie. "You are right, Dory," said she. "And I shall give up the house. I'll go to see Mrs. Dorsey now." "The house?--What--Oh, yes--well--no--What made you change?" She did not know the real reason--that, studying his face, the curve and set of his head, the strength of the personality which she was too apt to take for granted most of the time because he was simple and free from pretense, she had been reminded that he was not a man to be trifled with, that she would better bestir herself and give more thought and attention to what was going on in that superbly shaped head of his--about her, about her and him. "Oh, I don't just know," replied she, quite honestly. "It seems to me now that there'll be too much fuss and care and--sham. And I intend to interest myself in _your_ work. You've hardly spoken of it since I got back." "There's been so little time--" "You mean," she interrupted, "I've been so busy unpacking my silly dresses and hats and making and receiving silly calls." "Now you're in one of your penitential moods," laughed Dory. "And to-morrow you'll wish you hadn't changed about the house. No--that's settled. We'll take it, and see what the consequences are."