think I ought to say it," she insisted, "first of all because it's
true; and then because you would feel more at ease about me if you knew
just how it's true."

"You know that I'm not at ease about you."

"I know you think I must be discontented with my lot, when--in a certain
sense--I'm not at all so. I don't pretend that I prefer working for a
living to having money of my own; but I've found this"--she hesitated,
as if thinking out her phrase--"I've found that life grows richer as it
goes on, in whatever way one has to live it. It's as if the streams that
fed it became more numerous the farther one descended from the height."

"I'm glad you're able to say that--"

"I can say it very sincerely; and I lay stress upon it, because I know
you're kind enough to be worried about me. I wish I could make you
understand how little reason there is for it, though you mustn't think
that I'm not touched by it, or that I mistake its motive. I've come to
see that what I've often heard, and used scarcely to believe, is quite
true, that American men have an attitude toward women entirely different
from that of our men. Our men probably think more about women than any
other men in the world; but they think of them as objects of prey--with
joys and sorrows not to be taken seriously. You, on the contrary, are
willing to put yourself to great inconvenience for me, merely because I
am a woman."

"Not merely because of that," Derek permitted himself to say.

"We needn't weigh motives as if they were golddust. When we have their
general trend we have enough. I only want you to see that I understand
you, while I must ask you not to be hurt if I still persist in not
availing myself of your courtesy. I wish you wouldn't question me any
more about it, because there are situations in which one cheapens things
by the very effort to put them into words. If you were a woman, you'd
comprehend my feeling--"

"Let us assume that I do, as it is. I have still another suggestion to
make. Admitting that I stay at Rhinefields, why can't you ask your
mother-in-law to come and make you a couple of weeks' visit there?"

For a moment Diane forgot the restraint she made it a habit to impose
upon herself in the new conditions of her life, and slipped back into
the spontaneous manner of the past.

"How tiresome you are! I never knew any one but a child twist himself in
so many directions to get his own way."

"You see, I'm accustomed to having my own w