As far as those of her own group were concerned, there was no life. All mingling with the Bunch was over. Life, then, would mean social cliques and women's clubs, more or less boss controlled, politically influenced, "run" by one or two personalities, powerful in prestige but prejudiced and limited as to opportunity or progress. In such gatherings the girl instinctively felt there could be nothing constructive for her; the chemistry of these organizations was controlled by the acids of personal dislike or preference, or jealousy. Little careful nothings of possessions or dress were the intellectual meat of these associations, the inhibitions of the mentally torpid or the censorious attitude of the unimaginative virtuous. None of these things attracted a girl of Sard's impulse, a soul that demanded fine contacts, the eager mingling of men and women in associations of tolerance and forward looking, the stimulus of persons of vivid experience. Sard mentally said "No" to it all. Yet it was characteristic of her inherent nobility that she should attempt to force herself to an interest in these home matters, to attempt to form herself humbly on that narrow model. "It isn't nice to be choosy and exclusive," thought the girl; "real people are never that. I mustn't be 'superior,' whatever I do." She bent puzzled brows. "What would Colter have thought to be the right thing, to stay here and grow smaller and more timid and with less fresh impulse, or to break away, earn my own living, and, from Father's point of view, forfeit my right to my home?" "Ah! what would Colter think?" That was the sentence that dominated all Sard's life now. From under her pillow the girl drew a letter from Watts Shipman--eagerly her eye sought one passage--one she had read and reread: "I must not tell you all the circumstances, they are not mine to tell. Colter will want to tell you himself, but I have been able to help a little and I am rejoiced for the man you helped to save. Our friend Colter has surely come into his own, Miss Sard, and it is rather a magnificent Own. I do congratulate you on your discrimination in tramps. I suspect you have created a tradition that will some day be like a final degree. 'In 19-- he was discovered by Miss Sard Bogart, which justified his previous achievements in a blaze of glory. Forgive me for being enigmatic. Courage! Miss Winged Victory, that you may be happy in a parlous world is the deep wish of your true friend, "WATTS SHIPMAN." Sard went over it hungrily for the hundredth time. She knew this paragraph by heart; it swept her with impatient excitement. Why was it all so obscure? Why was so little told her? Had Colter really found himself? What was that real self? The girl's heart stood still; perhaps since Watts wrote this something had happened....