as rather--asinine. She came to the rescue.

"I suppose he and Wallace had something they wanted to talk about," she
commented easily, and he made haste to assent.

She steadied herself with a breath. "Did Wallace tell you," she asked,
"about our explosion at Ravinia over Paula's new contract? And how
furious both father and Paula are with me about it? And how I'm out
looking for a job? He didn't say anything about his sister, did he;
whether he'd written to her to-day or not?"

"Not whether he'd written. But he told us the rest. How you wanted to go
to work. As a nursery governess."

He paused there but she did not break in upon it. She had given him all
the lead he needed. With the deliberate care that a suddenly tremulous
hand made necessary he put down his teacup and spoke as if addressing it.

"I think you're the bravest--most wonderful person in the world. Of
course, I've known that always. Not just since I came back last spring.
But this, that Mr. Hood told us this afternoon, somehow--caps the climax.
I can't tell you how it--got me, to think of your being ready to do--a
thing like that."

The last thing she would have done voluntarily was to put any obstacles
in his way. Her program, on the contrary was to help him along all she
could to his declaration, make a refusal that should be as gentle as was
consistent with complete finality, and then get rid of him before
anything regrettably--messy ensued. But to have her courage rhapsodized
over like this was a thing she could not endure.

"It's nothing," she said rather dryly, "beyond what most girls do
nowadays as a matter of course. I'm being rather cowardly about it, I
think--on account of some silly ideas I've been more or less brought up
with perhaps, but..."

"What if they do?" he broke in; "thousands of them at the stores and in
the offices. It's bad enough for them--for any sort of woman. But it's
different with you. It's horrible. You aren't like them."

She tried to check herself but couldn't. "What's the difference? I'm
healthy and half-educated and fairly young. I have the same sort, pretty
much, of thoughts and feelings. I don't believe I like being clean and
warm and well-fed and amused and admired any better than the average girl
does. I ought to have found a job months ago, instead of letting Rush
bring me home from New York. Or else gone to work when I came home. But
every one was so horrified..."

"They were right to be," he interrupted.