e Cass says you're awfully educated."

"I am. Awfully. Tell me: Have the boys made fun of your ambition?"

She was seventy years old, and sexless, and more advisory than Vida
Sherwin.

"Well, they have, at that. They've jollied me a good deal, here and
Minneapolis both. They say dressmaking is ladies' work. (But I was
willing to get drafted for the war! I tried to get in. But they
rejected me. But I did try! ) I thought some of working up in a gents'
furnishings store, and I had a chance to travel on the road for a
clothing house, but somehow--I hate this tailoring, but I can't seem
to get enthusiastic about salesmanship. I keep thinking about a room in
gray oatmeal paper with prints in very narrow gold frames--or would it
be better in white enamel paneling?--but anyway, it looks out on
Fifth Avenue, and I'm designing a sumptuous----" He made it
"sump-too-ous"--"robe of linden green chiffon over cloth of gold! You
know--tileul. It's elegant. . . . What do you think?"

"Why not? What do you care for the opinion of city rowdies, or a lot
of farm boys? But you mustn't, you really mustn't, let casual strangers
like me have a chance to judge you."

"Well----You aren't a stranger, one way. Myrtle Cass--Miss Cass, should
say--she's spoken about you so often. I wanted to call on you--and the
doctor--but I didn't quite have the nerve. One evening I walked past
your house, but you and your husband were talking on the porch, and you
looked so chummy and happy I didn't dare butt in."

Maternally, "I think it's extremely nice of you to want to be trained
in--in enunciation by a stage-director. Perhaps I could help you. I'm
a thoroughly sound and uninspired schoolma'am by instinct; quite
hopelessly mature."

"Oh, you aren't EITHER!"

She was not very successful at accepting his fervor with the air of
amused woman of the world, but she sounded reasonably impersonal: "Thank
you. Shall we see if we really can get up a new dramatic club? I'll tell
you: Come to the house this evening, about eight. I'll ask Miss Mullins
to come over, and we'll talk about it."

VI

"He has absolutely no sense of humor. Less than Will. But hasn't
he-----What is a 'sense of humor'? Isn't the thing he lacks the
back-slapping jocosity that passes for humor here? Anyway----Poor lamb,
coaxing me to stay and play with him! Poor lonely lamb! If he could be
free from Nat Hickses, from people who say 'dandy' and 'bum,' would he
develop?

"I wonder