you are less, much less,
uncandid with him than I am, still isn't it more--more--less manly in
you? After all, I'm a woman and helpless; and, if I seriously offend him,
what would become of me? But you're a man. The world was made for men;
they can make their own way. And it seems unworthy of you to be afraid to
be yourself before _any_body. And I'm sure it's demoralizing."

She spoke so sincerely that he could not have resented it, even had her
words raised a far feebler echo within him. "I don't honestly believe,
Del, that my caution with father is from fear of his shutting down on me,
any more than yours is," he replied. "I know he cares for me. And often I
don't let him see me as I am simply because it'd hurt him if he knew how
differently I think and feel about a lot of things."

"But are you right?--or is he?"

Arthur did not answer immediately. He had forgotten his horses; they were
jogging along, heads down and "form" gone. "What do _you_ think?" he
finally asked.

"I--I can't quite make up my mind."

"Do you think I ought to drudge and slave, as he has? Do you think I
ought to spend my life in making money, in dealing in flour? Isn't there
something better than that?"

"I don't think it's what a man deals in; I think it's _how_ he deals.
And I don't believe there's any sort of man finer and better than
father, Arthur."

"That's true," he assented warmly. "I used to envy the boys at
college--some of them--because their fathers and mothers had so much
culture and knowledge of the world. But when I came to know their
parents better--and them, too--I saw how really ignorant and
vulgar--yes, vulgar--they were, under their veneer of talk and manner
which they thought was everything. 'They may be fit to stand before
kings' I said to myself, 'but my father _is_ a king--and of a sort they
ain't fit to stand before.'"

The color was high in Del's cheeks and her eyes were brilliant. "You'll
come out all right, Artie," said she. "I don't know just how, but you'll
_do_ something, and do it well."

"I'd much rather do nothing--well," said he lightly, as if not sure
whether he was in earnest or not. "It's so much nicer to dream than to
do." He looked at her with good-humored satire. "And you--what's the
matter with your practising some of the things you preach? Why don't you
marry--say, Dory Hargrave, instead of Ross?"

She made a failure of a stout attempt to meet his eyes and to smile
easily. "Because I don't