There's nothing divine in it. There's no true romance of lofty
sentiment. It's the simplest and most elemental of all the brutal facts
of animal life. That it is resistless in a woman of your culture and
refinement makes it all the more pathetic----"

The girl rose with a gesture of impatience.

"It's no use, Jane dear; we speak a different language. I don't in the
least know what you're talking about, and what's more, I'm glad I don't.
I've a vague idea that your drift is indecent. But we're different. I
realize that. I don't sit in judgment on you. You're wasting your breath
on me. I'm going into this marriage with my eyes wide open. It's the
fulfillment of my brightest hopes and aspirations. That I shall be happy
with this man and make him supremely happy I know by an intuition
deeper and truer than reason. I'm going to trust that intuition without
reservation."

"All right, honey," the artist agreed with a smile. "I won't say
anything more, except that you're fooling yourself about the depth of
this intuitive knowledge. Your infatuation is not based on the verdict
of your deepest and truest instincts."

"On what, then?"

"The crazy ideals of the novels you've been reading--that's all."

"Ridiculous!"

"You're absolutely sure, for instance, that God made just one man the
mate of one woman, aren't you?"

"As sure as that I live."

"Where did you learn it?"

"So long ago I can't remember."

"Not in your Bible?"

"No."

"The Sunday school?"

"No."

"Craddock didn't tell you that, did he?"

"Hardly----"

"I thought not. He has too much horse-sense in spite of his emotional
gymnastics. You learned it in the first dime-novel you read."

"I never read a dime-novel in my life," she interrupted, indignantly.

"I know--you paid a dollar and a quarter for it--but it was a
dime-novel. The philosophy of this school of trash you have built into
a creed of life. How can you be so blind? How can you make so tragic a
blunder?"

"That's just it, Jane: I couldn't if your impressions of his character
were true. I couldn't make a mistake about so vital a question. I
couldn't love him if he really were a coarse, illiterate brute. What you
see is only on the surface. He hasn't had his chance yet----"

"Who is he? What does he do? Who are his people?"

"He has no people----"

"I thought not."

"I love him all the more deeply," she went on firmly, "because of his
miserable childhood. I'll do my best to mak