know what it makes
me."

"Yes," he discreetly indulged her; "I know perfectly what it makes you.
It makes you, to begin with, a capital case."

She sighed, though gratefully, as if again before the social scene.
"Ah, there you are!"

"Oh, no; there 'we' aren't at all. There I am only--but as much as you
like. I've no end of American friends: there _they_ are, if you please,
and it's a fact that you couldn't very well be in a better place than
in their company. It puts you with plenty of others--and that isn't
pure solitude." Then he pursued: "I'm sure you've an excellent spirit;
but don't try to bear more things than you need." Which after an
instant he further explained. "Hard things have come to you in youth,
but you mustn't think life will be for you all hard things. You've the
right to be happy. You must make up your mind to it. You must accept
any form in which happiness may come."

"Oh, I'll accept any whatever!" she almost gaily returned. "And it
seems to me, for that matter, that I'm accepting a new one every day.
Now _this!"_ she smiled.

"This is very well so far as it goes. You can depend on me," the great
man said, "for unlimited interest. But I'm only, after all, one element
in fifty. We must gather in plenty of others. Don't mind who knows.
Knows, I mean, that you and I are friends."

"Ah, you do want to see some one!" she broke out. "You want to get at
some one who cares for me." With which, however, as he simply met this
spontaneity in a manner to show that he had often had it from young
persons of her race, and that he was familiar even with the
possibilities of their familiarity, she felt her freedom rendered vain
by his silence, and she immediately tried to think of the most
reasonable thing she could say. This would be, precisely, on the
subject of that freedom, which she now quickly spoke of as complete.
"That's of course by itself a great boon; so please don't think I don't
know it. I can do exactly what I like--anything in all the wide world.
I haven't a creature to ask--there's not a finger to stop me. I can
shake about till I'm black and blue. That perhaps isn't _all_ joy; but
lots of people, I know, would like to try it." He had appeared about to
put a question, but then had let her go on, which she promptly did, for
she understood him the next moment as having thus taken it from her
that her means were as great as might be. She had simply given it to
him so, and this was all that woul