ut not to her eyes. "Well--it's far in
the past now," said he. "Let's forget--all but the fun."

"Yes--all but the fun." Then very sweetly, "But I'll never forget
what I owe you. Not the money--not that, hardly at all--but what
you did for me. It made me able to go on."

"Don't speak of it," cried he, flushed and shamefaced. "I didn't
do half what I ought." Like most human beings he was aware of
his more obvious--if less dangerous--faults and weaknesses. He
liked to be called generous, but always had qualms when so
called because he knew he was in fact of the familiar type
classed as generous only because human beings are so artless in
their judgments as to human nature that they cannot see that
quick impulses quickly die. The only deep truth is that there
are no generous natures but just natures--and they are rarely
classed as generous because their slowly formed resolves have
the air of prudence and calculation.

In the hotel she went to the dressing-room, took twenty-five
dollars from the money in her stocking. As soon as they were
seated in the restaurant she handed it to him.

"But this makes it you who are having me to dinner--and more,"
he protested.

"If you knew what a weight it's been on me, you'd not talk that
way," said she.

Her tone compelled him to accept her view of the matter. He
laughed and put the money in his waistcoat pocket, saying: "Then
I'll still owe you a dinner."

During the past week she had been absorbing as only a young
woman with a good mind and a determination to learn the business
of living can absorb. The lessons before her had been the life
that is lived in cities by those who have money to spend and
experience in spending it; she had learned out of all proportion
to opportunity. At a glance she realized that she was now in a
place far superior to the Bohemian resorts which had seemed to
her inexperience the best possible. From earliest childhood she
had shown the delicate sense of good taste and of luxury that
always goes with a practical imagination--practical as
distinguished from the idealistic kind of imagination that is
vague, erratic, and fond of the dreams which neither could nor
should come true. And the reading she had done--the novels, the
memoirs, the books of travel, the fashion and home
magazines--had made deep and distinct impressions upon her, had
prepared her--as they have prepared thousands of Americans in
secluded towns and rural regions whe