se. I tell you
frankly I was a fool. I didn't care the snap of my finger for
Corliss, but--oh, what's the use of pretending? You were always
such a great `business man,' always so absorbed in business, and
put it before everything else in the world. You cared for me, but
you cared for business more than for me. Well, no woman likes
_that_, Wade. I've come to tell you the whole thing: I can't stand
it any longer. I suffered horribly because--because----" She
faltered. "Wade, that was no way to _win_ a girl."

"Cora!" His incredulity was strong.

"I thought I hated you for it, Wade. Yes, I did think that; I'm
telling you everything, you see just blurting it out as it comes,
Wade. Well, Corliss asked me to help him, and it struck me I'd
show that I could understand a business deal, myself. Wade, this
is pretty hard to say, I was such a little fool, but you ought to
know it. You've got a right to know it, Wade: I thought if I put
through a thing like that, it would make a tremendous hit with
you, and that then I could say: `So this is the kind of thing you
put ahead of _me_, is it? Simple little things like this, that _I_
can do, myself, by turning over my little finger!' So I got
Richard to go in--that was easy; and then it struck me that the
crowning triumph of the whole thing would be to get you to come in
yourself. That _would_ be showing you, I thought! But you
wouldn't: you put me in my place--and I was angry--I never was so
angry in my life, and I showed it." Tears came into her voice.
"Oh, Wade," she said, softly, "it was the very wildness of my
anger that showed what I really felt."

"About--about _me_?" His incredulity struggled with his hope. He
stepped close to her.

"What an awful fool I've been," she sighed.

"Why, I thought I could show you I was your _equal_! And look what
it's got me into, Wade!"

"What has it got you into, Cora?"

"One thing worth while: I can see what I really am when I try to
meet you on your own ground." She bent her head, humbly, then
lifted it, and spoke rapidly. "All the rest is dreadful, Wade. I
had a distrust of Corliss from the first; I didn't like him, but I
took him up because I thought he offered the chance to show _you_
what I could do. Well, it's got me into a most horrible mess. He's
a swindler, a rank----"

"By George!" Wade shouted. "Cora, you're talking out now like a
real woman."

"Listen. I got horribly tired of him after a week or so, but I'd
promised to