The exquisitely sensitive perception which is an inherent part of innocence was hers. The Dosia who at twelve could not be induced to enter a room when a certain man was in it, because she “did not like the way he _looked_ at her,” had as unerring an instinct now as then; it was an instinct so deep, so interwoven with every pulse of her nature, that to deny it ever so little was a spiritual hurt. She could not have told why certain subjects, certain joking expressions even, revolted her so that she shrank from them involuntarily. She could not have told why she knew there was something about Lawson different from the other men she had been accustomed to. Dosia not only knew nothing of the practice of evil, she knew nothing of life nor the laws of it; but it could never be said of her that she did not know when right bordered on wrong. She knew—and it would have been impossible for her not to have known—her slightest deviation from that shining road which can only be followed by white feet. Her first quick idea of Lawson as not the kind of man that she would ever want to marry still held good. Back of all this was the image of the true prince. There are people whose natures we always feel electrically, a sensation which depends neither on liking nor on disliking, and which often partakes of both. When we meet them there is always a slight shock, a psychic tingling, a displacement of values, that makes us uncertain of our pathway; the colors seen in this artificial light are different from those seen by day. Barr affected Dosia thus. If he came into a room, she knew it at once; dancing or walking or talking with others, she felt his eyes upon her, disquieting her and making her conscious of his presence, so that she could not get up or sit down naturally. When he was not there, everything was flat and uninteresting in the withdrawal of this exciting disquietude. If she met his remarks cleverly, it gave her a delighted occupation for hours in recalling them; if she failed in repartee, and was “thick” and school-girlish, her cheeks would burn and the taste for life would leave her; she could hardly wait to see him again to retrieve herself. She was not in love with Barr, she was not even in love with love,—a fairly healthful process,—but she was in love with the excitement of his presence.