our tone and in your
eyes?" asked he.

"I didn't put it there," she answered. "It--just came. And
I was grateful because--well, I'm human, you know, and it was
good to feel--that--that----"

"Go on," said he, as she hesitated.

"I'm afraid you'll misunderstand."

"What does it matter, if I do?"

"Well--you've acted toward me as if I were a mere machine that
you were experimenting with."

"And so you are."

"I understand that. But when you offered to help me, if I
happened to want to do something different from what you want
me to do, it made me feel that you thought of me as a human
being, too."

The expression of his unseeing eyes puzzled her. She became
much embarrassed when he said, "Are you dissatisfied with
Spenser? Do you want to change lovers? Are you revolving me
as a possibility?"

"I haven't forgotten what you said," she protested.

"But a few words from me wouldn't change you from a woman into
a sexless ambition."

An expression of wistful sadness crept into the violet-gray eyes,
in contrast to the bravely smiling lips. She was thinking of
her birth that had condemned her to that farmer Ferguson, full
as much as of the life of the streets, when she said:

"I know that a man like you wouldn't care for a woman of my sort."

"If I were you," said he gently, "I'd not say those things
about myself. Saying them encourages you to think them. And
thinking them gives you a false point of view. You must learn
to appreciate that you're not a sheltered woman, with
reputation for virtue as your one asset, the thing that'll
enable you to get some man to undertake your support. You are
dealing with the world as a man deals with it. You must
demand and insist that the world deal with you on that
basis." There came a wonderful look of courage and hope into
the eyes of Lorella's daughter.

"And the world will," he went on. "At least, the only part of
it that's important to you--or really important in any way.
The matter of your virtue or lack of it is of no more
importance than is my virtue or lack of it."

"Do you _really_ believe that way?" asked Susan, earnestly.

"It doesn't in the least matter whether I do or not," laughed
he. "Don't bother about what I think--what anyone thinks--of
you. The point here, as always, is that you believe it,
yourself. There's no reason why a woman who is making a
career should not be virtuous. She will probably not get far
if she isn't more or less