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When Dr. Bruneau had gone, Keble reflected that it was indeed a funny world. Not the least ludicrous feature of it being that he, the product of many generations of almost automatic gentility, should have happened to make himself the son-in-law of a garrulous, fantastic, kind-hearted, plebeianly shrewd, Bohemian country physician, who, more like his sister than he knew, was too spiritual to be successful in his profession, and too close to the earth to be a valid sage,—a man of the people, of the soil from which Louise had come forth as the fine flower.

He recalled with a faint smile the pretexts he used to devise for dropping into the doctor’s little house on his long ski-journeys to the Valley: a fancied ailment, the desire to borrow a book or offer a gift of whisky from a recently-arrived supply. He recalled his reluctant leave-takings and the very black, mocking eyes, tantalizing lips, and jaunty curls of the girl who accompanied him to the door. He recalled the shock of his sense of fitness on realizing during the spring the significance of his visits; his abrupt pilgrimage to the family fold in England to repair his perspective; the desolating sense of absence; the sudden cablegram; and her proud, challenging reply. It had been brought to him just before dinner, and he could yet feel the thrill that had passed through him as he entered the dining-room formulating his revolutionary announcement.