? Is it my fault that I don't know anything about
life? What chance did I ever have to know anything real? I wasn't
educated. I was 'accomplished.' Oh, of course, if I had been a big
person, a person with a real mind--if I had had anything exceptional
about me--I would have stepped out. But I'm nothing but the most ordinary
sort of girl. I haven't any talents. Nobody--myself included--can see any
reason for my being any different from the people I'm associated with. I
was brought up in the army. Army life isn't real life. It's army life. To
an army man a girl is a girl, and what they mean by a girl has nothing to
do with being a thinking being. Then what business has a man like you--I
don't know who you are or what you're doing, but I believe you have some
ideas about the real things of life--tell me, please--what business have
you jeering at me?"

"I have no business jeering at you," he said quickly, simply and
strongly.

But Katie had changed. He had a fancy that she would always be changing;
that she was not one to rest in outlived emotions, that one mood was
always but the making and enriching of another mood, moment ever flowing
into moment, taking with it the heart of the moment that had gone. "You
are quite right to pity me," she said, and tears surged beneath both eyes
and voice. "Whether scoffingly or genuinely--you were quite right.
Feeling just enough to feel there _is_ something--but not a big enough
feeling to go to that something, knowing just enough to know I'm being
cheated, but without either the courage or the knowledge to do anything
about it--I'm surely a pitiable and laughable object. Come, Worth," she
said sharply, "we're going home."

But Worth had begun upon the construction of a raft, and was not in a
home-going mood. Thus encouraged by his young friend the man who mended
the boats sat down on a log.

"When did you begin to want to know about the 'underlying principles of
life'?" His smile quoted it, though less mockingly than tenderly.

Katie was silent.

"Was it the day _she_ came?" he asked quietly.

She gasped. Was he--a wizard? But looking at him and seeing he looked
very much more like a man than like anything else, she met him as man
should be met. "The day who came? I don't know what you mean."

"The girl. Was it the day you took her in? Saved her by making her
save you?"

She was too startled by that for pretense. She could only stare at him.

"I saw her before you did," he