guess."

"You don't like society people very much, do you?"

"Not much," candidly. "And I guess they wouldn't care much for me, so that
squares it."

"I suppose the sort of people you mean by 'society' wouldn't care for
you," said the girl, frankly. "But there are people, you know, even among
the rich who have sense enough to know a worth-while man when they meet
him."

It was Scott's turn to show confusion. "I don't mean that there aren't any
decent rich folks. I'm not such a blamed idiot as that," he said. "You,
yourself, have a lot more sense than an heiress has any right to," he
added, with a smile.

"Me? I'm not an heiress. Father has a big salary, of course, but we spend
every cent of it. We don't mean to but we always do. Somehow, our expenses
crawl up every time the salary crawls. Of course, there's insurance, but
that would go to Mother. You see, they've educated both Bob and me well
enough so that we can support ourselves; I could be athletic instructor in
a girls' college to-morrow if I wanted to; and Father's invested a good
deal in this mine on Bob's account. He thinks he's done his duty by us and
I do, too."

"So do I," said Scott, soberly. "I don't believe in these handed-down
fortunes--money tied up for generations."

"I think," said Polly, shyly, "that you're a bit of a socialist."

"So do I--only I've never found exactly the brand of socialism that I
believe in. Maybe they haven't discovered it yet. But I do believe that
we've got to do better by each other than we're doing now if we're ever
going to make a success of living. Whether it's got to come by individual
reform or by some new system of government, I don't know, but things have
got to improve, and, by gum, I believe they will! We're too good, all of
us, to be wasted the way most of us are."

He spoke with a fire that Polly had never seen in him before. She had
thought him phlegmatic, but here was something temperamental--something
that kindled enthusiasm in her. She was too hampered by her own
inexperience of life to know what to say to him; she felt helpless in the
presence of feelings that she had never had and could not feel sure that
she understood; and she feared to say the wrong thing--she, Polly Street,
who had always said what she liked to men and let them take it as they
chose! It was a queer feeling and she wondered----

"Hold on, what's that?" Scott stopped his horse suddenly.

"What's what?" demanded the girl, startled