He had never evaded facts, never feared a risk, never shirked an issue, never lacked the hardy, adventurous courage of battle.

In his own words, life had never "found him a quitter." He stood in front of her now, fresh, smiling, robust, with his look of suddenly arrested energy, and the dark red of his hair, which was still moist from his bath, striking a vivid note against the cool grays and blues of the background.

The sunshine, falling through the open window, warmed the ruddy tan of his face, and made his eyes like pools of clear light in which the jubilant spirit of the spring was reflected.

"After all, it isn't what one does, it is what one is, that matters," she thought while she looked at him.

"At the end, as Miss Polly said, it is character, not circumstances, that counts." "I've been all over New York this morning looking for that basket," he said.