"You know Jim wasn't a--wasn't exactly a saint, Ju," Richard said awkwardly after a while. "I know," she answered with a quick nod. "I believe he was an exceptionally decent fellow, as fellows go," pursued Richie. "But, of course, it is the accepted thing. On Jim's first vacation, after he entered college, he told me he didn't care much for that sort of thing--we had a long talk about it. But a year or two later there was a young woman--he used to call her 'the little girl'--I don't know exactly--Anyway, Dad went East, there was some sort of a fuss, and I know Jim treated her awfully well--there never was any question of that--she never felt anything but gratitude to him, whatever grievances she had about any one else--" His voice dropped. "But it's not the same thing," Julia said with a sigh. "No, I suppose not," Richard agreed. "Life has been too violent and too swift with me," Julia resumed, after a while. "If I had the past fifteen years to live over again, I would live them very differently. I made an idol of Jim; he could do no wrong. He wanted more bracing treatment than that; he should have been boldly faced down. If I had been wiser, I would have treated all my marriage differently. If I had been very wise, I should not have married at all, should have kept my own secret. Perhaps, marrying, I should not have told him the truth; I don't know. Anyway, I have mixed things up hopelessly, given other people and myself an enormous amount of pain, and wrecked my life and Jim's. And now, when I am thirty, I feel as if I could begin to see light, begin to live--as if now, when nothing on earth seems really important, I knew how to meet life!" "Well, that's been my attitude for some years," Richie said, shifting his lame leg again. "Of course I started in handicapped, which is a great advantage--" "Advantage? Oh, Richie!" Julia protested. "Yes, it is, from one point of view," he insisted whimsically. "'Who loses his life,' you know. Most boys and girls start off into life like kites in a high wind without tails. There's a glorious dipping and plunging and sailing for a little while, and then down they come in a tangle of string and paper and broken wood. I had a tail to start with, some humiliating deficiency to keep me balanced. No football and tennis for me, no flirting and dancing and private theatricals. When Bab and Ned were in one whirl of good times, I was working out chess problems to make myself forget my hip, and reading Carlyle and Thoreau and Emerson. Nobody is born content, Ju, and nobody has it thrust upon him; just a few achieve it. I worked over the secret of happiness as if it was the multiplication table. Happiness is the best thing in the world. It's only a habit, and I've got it." "_Is_ happiness the best thing in the world, Rich?" Julia asked wistfully.