“That is heroic--but entirely wrong,” he decided magisterially. “My code is stricter than that, and it applies to men and women alike. I mean to be able to give as much as I ask. If I can’t give, I shan’t ask.” “What terrible spiritual pride!” she commented, laughing again. Then, soberly: “Don’t you know, I shall be truly sorry for the woman you marry.” “Why do you say that?” “Because you don’t know women at all--or yourself. And, besides, you don’t know the meaning of love; the unselfish kind that takes for better or worse. Let’s not talk about such things. We always get lost in the woods when we do. Where shall you go next to look for your father?” “I haven’t decided. There are some camps in the San Juan that I haven’t been to. Perhaps I shall go down there next.” They went on across the bridge and presently reached the cottage on the west side. At the gate Philip declined Jean’s invitation to come in. The bitter taste was still with him, and as he walked slowly back to town he was placing Bromley as the figurant upon whom Jean’s tacit defense of the sinners was based. The play-boy’s acceptance by the Dabneys one and all was of the unreserved sort that Bromley seemed to be able to win wherever he went, and it was he who oftenest walked home with Jean when she was kept late in the millinery shop. Philip assured himself that he wasn’t jealous; he was merely sorry. Jean was much too fine to be wasted upon a man who, by his own confession, had “gone all the gaits.” True, Bromley showed no indications of any desire to return to his wallowing in the mire; but that made no difference: he _had_ wallowed, and Jean knew it--knew it and was willing to condone. That was the bitter part of it. Did she, in common with other women he had heard of, accept the devil’s maxim that a reformed rake makes the best husband? And about this business of reform: how deep did it go? Was there ever any such thing as a complete reintegration? Could a man--or a woman--ever fully regain the heights from which the descent had begun? Admitting that Bromley had a heart of gold, as he--Philip--had once characterized him for Jean, wasn’t he at best but a brand snatched from the burning? And though the brand might not spring alight again, wouldn’t there always be the charred scar and the ashes? Philip climbed the stair in the Alamo Building determined to have a straight talk with Bromley. But the time proved to be unpropitious. The play-boy was dressing to go out--conscripted for a theater party with the Follansbees, as he put it. “Have to be decently chummy, of course,” he grumbled, “but I’d much rather go across the Creek and play parchesi with Mysie and Mary Louise.” Then: “That reminds me of something I’ve been chewing on ever since you went away this last time, Phil. Even with the rent of the cottage as low as I dared put it without giving the whole snap away, the load is still too heavy for Jean--much too heavy. Can’t you see it?”