m at last. "I've never
had any advantages, I don't know anything. I've never had a chance to
learn. I've told you that before."

"What difference does that make? You've got more sense than any woman I
ever saw," he declared.

"It makes a great deal of difference to me," she insisted--and the sound
of these words on her own lips was like a summons arousing her from a
dream. The sordidness of her life, its cruel lack of opportunity in
contrast with the gifts she felt to be hers, and on which he had dwelt,
was swept back into her mind. Self-pity, dignity, and inherent
self-respect struggled against her woman's desire to give; an inherited
racial pride whispered that she was worthy of the best, but because she
had lacked the chance, he refrained from offering her what he would have
laid at the feet of another woman.

"I'll give you advantages--there's nothing I wouldn't give you. Why won't
you come to me? I'll take care of you."

"Do you think I want to be taken care of?" She wheeled on him so swiftly
that he started back. "Is that what you think I want?"

"No, no," he protested, when he recovered his speech.

"Do you think I'm after--what you can give me?" she shot at him. "What
you can buy for me?"

To tell the truth, he had not thought anything about it, that was the
trouble. And her question, instead of enlightening him, only added to his
confusion and bewilderment.

"I'm always getting in wrong with you," he told her, pathetically. "There
isn't anything I'd stop at to make you happy, Janet, that's what I'm
trying to say. I'd go the limit."

"Your limit!" she exclaimed.

"What do you mean?" he demanded. But she had become inarticulate
--cryptic, to him. He could get nothing more out of her.

"You don't understand me--you never will!" she cried, and burst into
tears--tears of rage she tried in vain to control. The world was black
with his ignorance. She hated herself, she hated him. Her sobs shook her
convulsively, and she scarcely heard him as he walked beside her along
the empty road, pleading and clumsily seeking to comfort her. Once or
twice she felt his hand on her shoulders.... And then, unlooked for and
unbidden, pity began to invade her. Absurd to pity him! She fought
against it, but the thought of Ditmar reduced to abjectness gained
ground. After all, he had tried to be generous, he had done his best, he
loved her, he needed her--the words rang in her heart. After all, he did
not realize how could