"I've done a lot of experimenting in dietetics," he explained, "and I have finally been brought to face the fact, after years of vegetarianism, that there's nothing like a good steak for a brain-worker. It's easily digested and affords ready nourishment ... vegetables, yes ... but it takes up so much vital energy to digest them ... the meat-eating races are the dominant races of the world ... but," he flashed quickly, "I always try to be logical and consistent. If I eat meat, I must be willing to kill the animal I eat. I must not stand off in dainty horror over the butcher's trade, while I live by it." "Surely you don't mean that you do your own butchering?" "No ... not that ... but I've proven to myself that I can kill ... we had a dog, a mongrel, that attached itself to us ... tore up everything in my study ... tore the sheets and pillow slips on the beds ... I took it out into the woods," he ended gravely, "and killed ... shot it ... of course I had to summon up all my resolution ... but I did it." While admitting the almost childlike exactness of my friend's logic, I could not help smiling to myself at his grotesque sincerity.... We walked far ... through green fields ... over flashing brooks ... through lovely woodland vistas ... we paused on the top of a hill, with vistas all about us ... just as we had done on Azure Mound in Kansas.... "I asked you to take this walk with me in order to tell you something.... Johnnie, you're my friend, and that is why I don't want you to stay at my house with us. I want you to put up at the Community Inn, at my expense ... eat your meals with us, of course." I was surprised. He did not want me in the house _because I was his friend_!... in silence I waited his further explanation.... "Yes," he continued, "I want to spare you trouble ... Hildreth and I, you see," he proceeded with painful frankness, "are quite near the breaking point ... I don't think we'll be together very many months longer ... and ... and ... I don't want you to become involved ... for I'm simply desperate." "But, Penton, how could I become involved?" "Johnnie, you don't know women, or you wouldn't ask ... especially women of my wife's type ... hysterical, parasitic, passionate, desperate.... I tell you what, you stay at the inn!" A pause;--I was startled by what he said next: "Besides, it's time you had a mate, a real mate ... and I," he proceeded with incredible gravity, "I have been urging Ruth, my secretary, to take you ... you and she would be quite happy together ... she can support herself, for instance ... that would place no economic burden on you." "Really, Penton!" I demurred. I was learning how utterly bookish, how sheerly a literary man Penton Baxter was ... and how absurd, at the same time. How life never drew near him, how he ever saw it through the film of his latest theory, and tried to order his own, as well as everybody else's life, to jibe with it.... * * * * *