thought that there was
no height I could not scale to gain your side. I worked for you, but
that is no way for a man to work. He must work because he is a man and
needs must win as big as he can to keep his own self-respect.

"I promised to teach you to love me, and I've failed. And knowing that
my failure is not all my own fault is not going to make it any easier
for me. You've taught me loneliness I'm never going to forget as long
as I live, but I don't love you any the less for that. I dreamed big
dreams for both of us." His voice was dreary of a sudden. "I promised
I'd make those dreams come true, because I thought my life could be
your life. I've not done so; that thing could never be. I've talked
bigger than I could practice, and that is not going to help my
self-confidence any, but as it stands now I can earn it back. I
couldn't have done that if I had married you, and waked some day to
find you shrinking from me. It would have killed it, and my
self-respect too, to have learned too late that you believed still in
your own greater fineness."

"I tell you it is not that," she cried out. "Can't I make you
understand----"

"You have made me understand till I am sure," he stated. "I am no
longer vexing myself with trivial things. Birth? My name means as
much as yours. Education? You would not tell me, would you, that I am
not wiser in most ways you'd think to mention. I'd break any man who
gave to your ears many things I have learned." He was whimsical for a
flash. "I could outspell you without an effort; books have been my
partners when you had rather dance. Oh, you could not lose me, no
matter where you strayed in fields like that. In any way you care to
mention I have outstripped you, for I decided long ago that I must know
more than you. Yet I have not forgotten how to play, either.

"You have been uncertain; I have seen that. You are certain now. And
the fundamental thing remains unchanged. In me there is that man who
once man-handled Harrigan--and you didn't want me to touch you! You
don't have to tell me any more that you can't love me. When you drew
away from me, that was enough."

His voice held a question, but the girl couldn't answer at first.

"Wasn't it?" he repeated very gently, for he would have it from her own
lips.

Her face lifted. Her eyes were blurred with tears, but she nodded in
affirmation.

So roughly that the dishes rattled he rose.

"I do not want you