est walk over you. Why, lookin' at it from any
standpoint-of-view I can't see but it's a grand oppertoonity. An' you're
fond of him, ain't you?"

"O, yes, I'm very fond of Mr. Van Brandt. But I'm fond of him as a
friend. I couldn't--couldn't--couldn't ever marry him."

"What for you couldn't? It ain't as if you liked some other fella
better! If you liked some other fella better, no matter how little you
might think you'd ever get the refusal of'm, I'd say, _stick to the reel
article: don't be put of with substitoots_. It ain't no use tryin' to
fool your heart. You can monkey with your brain, an' make it believe all
sorts of tommyrot, but your heart is dead on to you, an' when it once
sets in hankerin' it means business."

Claire nodded unseeingly to her own reflection in the glass.

"Now _my_ idea is," Martha continued, "my idea is, if you got somethin'
loomin', why, don't hide your face an' play it isn't there. There ain't
no use standin' on the ragged edge till every tooth in your head
chatters with cold an' fright. You don't make nothin' _by_ it. If you
love a man like a friend or if you love a friend like a man, my advice
is, take your seat in the chair, grip a-holt o' the arms, brace your
feet, an'--let'er go, Gallagher! It'll be over in a minit, as the
dentists say."

"But suppose you had something else on your heart. Something that had
nothing to do with--with that sort of thing?" Claire asked.

"What sorter thing?"

"Why--love. Suppose you'd done something unworthy of you. Suppose the
sense of having done it made you wretched, made you want to make others
wretched? What would you do--then?"

"Now, my dear, don't you make no mistake. I ain't goin' to be drew into
no blindman's grab-bag little game, not on your sweet life. I ain'ter
goin' to risk havin' you hate me all the rest o' your nacherl life
becoz, to be obligin' an' also to show what a smart boy am I, I give a
verdick without all the everdence in. If you wanter tell me plain out
what's frettin' you, I'll do my best accordin' to my lights, but
otherwise--"

"Well--" began Claire, and then followed, haltingly, stumblingly, the
story of her adventure in the closet.

"At first I felt nothing but the wound to my pride, the sting of what
he--of what _they_ said," she concluded. "But, after a little, I began
to realize there was something else. I began to see what _I_ had done.
For, you know, I had deliberately listened. I needn't have listened. If
I