“Your encouragement is very sweet, papa.  I’m not complacent over myself, however; and I’ve failed so signally in one instance that I’m vexed and almost saddened.  You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know,” with a slight laugh.  “Merwyn is still your unsolved problem, and he worries you.”

“Not because he is unsolved, but rather that the solution has proved so disappointing and unexpected.  He baffles me with a trait which I recognize, but can’t understand, and only admit in wonder and angry protest.  Indeed, from the beginning of our acquaintance he has reversed my usual experiences.  His first approaches incensed me beyond measure,—­all the more, I suppose, because I saw in him an odious reflection of my old spirit.  But, papa, when to his condescending offer I answered from the full bitterness of my heart, he looked and acted as if I had struck him with a knife.”

Her father again laughed, as he said:  “You truly used heroic surgery, and to excellent purpose.  Has he shown any conceit, complacency, or patronizing airs since?”

“No, I admit that, at least.”

“In destroying some of his meaner traits by one keen thrust, you did him a world of good.  Of course he suffered under such a surgical operation, but he has had better moral health ever since.”

“Oh, yes,” she burst out, “he has become an eminently respectable and patriotic millionnaire, giving of his abundance to save the nation’s life, living in a palace meanwhile.  What did he mean by his passionate words, ’I shall measure everything hereafter by the breadth of your woman’s soul’?  What have the words amounted to?  You know, papa, that nothing but my duty and devotion to you keeps me from taking an active part in this struggle, even though a woman.  Indeed, the feeling is growing upon me that I must spend part of my time in some hospital.  A woman can’t help having an intense conviction of what she would do were she a man, and you know what I would have done, and he knows it also.  Therefore he has not kept his word, for he fails at the vital point in reaching my standard.  I have no right to judge men in Mr. Merwyn’s position because they do not go to the front.  Let them do what they think wise and prudent; let them also keep among their own kind.  I protest against their coming to me for what I give to friends who have already proved themselves heroes.  But there, I forgot.  He looks so like a man that I can’t help thinking that he is one,—­that he could come up to my standard if he chose to.  He still seeks me—­”

“No, he has not been here since he heard Blauvelt’s story.”