of her,
or of those shadows lurking in her background. He only understood that
she wanted, and it was his pleasure and purpose to supply that want at
his own expense.

"I haven't forgotten," she said, with something like a sigh. "But you
want to hand me furs that are your own trade. And I--I can't accept
them."

She shook her head definitely. Then with an effort she thrust the regret
she felt into the background, and her eyes lit with a smile of humour.

"You haven't heard the notion _I_ was raised to--yet," she said.

"No."

Marcel was satisfied with the return of her smile.

"Would you like to?"

"Sure."

The girl laughed.

"I guess it's not as simple as yours," she said. "A woman's reason isn't
generally simple. You see, she musses up feelings with argument which
generally confuse the issue. Guess a woman's life is mostly a thing of
confusion. You see, she started bad, though it wasn't her fault. When
the folks, who ought to know better, started in to make man before his
mother you can't wonder it's that way. Now I was raised to believe man
is woman's rightful protector. There's women who reckon she's got man
left standing when it comes to helping things along. But she's the sort
of woman who always cooks her own favourite dish when she reckons to
give her man a real treat. There's the other woman who's so sure man is
her rightful protector that she's not content to wait around for his
protection. She gets right out and grabs it, along with anything else
he's foolish enough to leave within her reach. Then there's the woman
who shouts around that she doesn't need protecting anyway. She mostly
ends up with grabbing all the man-protection that happens to be lying
around, without worrying whose 'claim' she's jumping. But to get back to
the notion I was raised to, it seems to me that man is surely a woman's
rightful protector, but there isn't a thing on earth can make me see
that she's the right to take any sort of protection he hasn't the right
to give. That sort of woman's a vampire. And vampires are things I'd
like to see drowned so deep they can't ever resurrect. If I took your
pelts I'd be a vampire for taking something you haven't the right to
give. They're your trade, and I guess out of your trade you've got to
pay your outfit of Eskimo. Do you see? To my way of thinking those furs
are not yours to give, just because you find a fool girl squealing for
three thousand dollars of trade. But say," she adde