ccount of your
father's loss? You didn't suppose I cared for you because he was
prosperous?"

There was a shade of reproach, ever so delicate and gentle, in his
smiling question, which she felt.

"No, I couldn't think such a thing of you. I--I don't know what I
meant. I meant that----" She could not go on and say that she had felt
herself more worthy of him because of her father's money; it would not
have been true; yet there was no other explanation. She stopped, and
cast a helpless glance at him.

He came to her aid. "I understand why you shouldn't wish me to suffer
by your father's misfortunes."

"Yes, that was it; and there is too great a difference every way. We
ought to look at that again. You mustn't pretend that you don't know
it, for that wouldn't be true. Your mother will never like me, and
perhaps--perhaps I shall not like her."

"Well," said Corey, a little daunted, "you won't have to marry my
family."

"Ah, that isn't the point!"

"I know it," he admitted. "I won't pretend that I don't see what you
mean; but I'm sure that all the differences would disappear when you
came to know my family better. I'm not afraid but you and my mother
will like each other--she can't help it!" he exclaimed, less judicially
than he had hitherto spoken, and he went on to urge some points of
doubtful tenability. "We have our ways, and you have yours; and while
I don't say but what you and my mother and sisters would be a little
strange together at first, it would soon wear off, on both sides.
There can't be anything hopelessly different in you all, and if there
were it wouldn't be any difference to me."

"Do you think it would be pleasant to have you on my side against your
mother?"

"There won't be any sides. Tell me just what it is you're afraid of."

"Afraid?"

"Thinking of, then."

"I don't know. It isn't anything they say or do," she explained, with
her eyes intent on his. "It's what they are. I couldn't be natural
with them, and if I can't be natural with people, I'm disagreeable."

"Can you be natural with me?"

"Oh, I'm not afraid of you. I never was. That was the trouble, from
the beginning."

"Well, then, that's all that's necessary. And it never was the least
trouble to me!"

"It made me untrue to Irene."

"You mustn't say that! You were always true to her."

"She cared for you first."

"Well, but I never cared for her at all!" he besought her.

"She thought you did."

"T