THE UNKNOWN MR. KENT
the man was big enough to fathom her distress and mental harassments in those times of upheaval! From a defiant dislike, she had been won to a grudging respect for his rough, direct methods. She felt that she merited forgiveness for the natural ignorance of one who had never before come in contact with an American, and particularly with such a one. She had come to forget that he was not of her own nationality, which but increased her resentment. She had learned to understand that this alien who came and went, obscure, unobtrusive, unassuming, had in him some marvellous quality of leadership and organisation that needed no trappings to give it dignity and power. And as the success of his methods became positive in realisation, she regretted opportunities, lost, for a better friendship and understanding, with and of such a character. There was embodied in him a strange, new and virile life, a capacity for achievement, that she decided must have been born of that strange, new and virile country from which he had sprung. All her life had been imbued with contempt for such a country, a country of crudities, a colossus with nothing to recommend it save resources and wealth, and now, in the presence of this man from that country, who adroitly twisted all things to his purpose, she felt peculiarly weak and useless. What was there about him, what mysterious qual-
