you are
very unworldly, what is usually called very unsophisticated."

If she had thought to pique him with this adjective, she was disarmed
by the heartiness of his admission, "As green as grass! But I'd like to
help you all the same, if I can."

"You don't care if you are?" she asked curiously.

"Lord no! What does it matter?"

"You may care then to know," she went on, still probing at him, "that
your not caring is the principal reason for my--finding you
interesting--for my liking you--as I do."

"Well, I'm interested to know that," he said reasonably, "but blessed
if I can see why. What difference does it make to _you_?"

"It's a great surprise to me," she said clearly. "I never met anybody
before who didn't care more about being sophisticated than about
anything else. To have you not even think of that--to have you think of
nothing but your work and how to 'mean well' as you say----" she
stopped, flushing deeply.

"Yes, it must be quite a change," he admitted sobered by her tone, but
evidently vague as to her meaning. "Well, I'm very glad you don't mind
my being as green as grass and as dense as a hitching-block. It's very
lucky for me."

A quick bitterness sprang into her voice. "I don't see," she echoed his
phrase, "what difference it makes to _you_!"

"Don't you?" he said, lighting a cigarette and not troubling himself to
discuss the question with her. She was evidently all on edge with
nerves, he thought, and needed to be calmed down. He pitied women for
their nerves, and was always kindly tolerant of the resultant
petulances.

She frowned and said with a tremulous resentment, as if gathering
herself together for a long-premediated attempt at self-defense.
"You're not only as green as grass, but you perceive nothing,--any
European, even the stupidest, would perceive what you--but you are as
primitive as a Sioux Indian, you have the silly morals of a
non-conformist preacher,--you're as brutal as----"

He opposed to this outburst the impregnable wall of a calm and
meditative silence. She looked angrily into his quiet eyes, which met
hers with unflinching kindness. The contrast between their faces was
striking--was painful.

She said furiously, "There is nothing to you except that you are
stronger than I, and you know it--and that _is_ brutal!" She paused a
long moment, quivering, and then relapsed into spent, defeated
lassitude,--"and I like it," she added under her breath, looking down
at her ha