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rtively toward the doorway where the young men stood. The girl had a kind of flimsy prettiness which suggested a cotillon favor. Her hair was fluffy, and coquettishly knotted at the back with blue ribbon. Her freshly ironed white dress set off her hourglass figure, and the fingers on which she was continually twisting the rings were white and slender. Her lips were set in a somewhat simpering smile, and her voice was soft with a view to effect. Brady watched her artless artfulness with some amusement. When they had gone out, he hinted something to Flint in regard to the conquest he appeared to have made; but found him so loftily unconscious that his jest fell flat, and he dropped the subject to take up a more serious theme as they strolled along the road, and at length seated themselves where the turkeys had made their roost, on the gray rail-fence in the moonlight. "I wonder, Flint," said Brady, "if we shall be able to take up our old association where we dropped it." "Of course not," Flint answered, "don't imagine it for a moment!" "I don't see why we should not." "You don't?" "No, I do not." "Well, that fact alone is enough to show the gap between us. I can see it plainly enough. You have spent these last ten years in active, quick decisions, accumulating energy, push, drive--what you call hustling; while I have been trying to see into things a little, trying to find out what is worth hustling for--whether anything is. Now do you suppose that two people with such opposite training are going to fit together like a cup and ball, as they used to do when they were chums in college, and had had no training at all?" "I don't know," said Brady, more dubiously. Then he went on, with the air of one who is not to be balked in speaking his mind, "I am not quite sure that I think your training has improved you." "Very likely not," said Flint, imperturbably puffing away at his pipe. "I suppose," continued Brady, "that it is very cultivating, and philosophical, and up-to-date to lie back like that, and let your soul expand, to wonder whether anything is worth while, and smile at the struggle of the dull people around you who are foolish enough to believe that something is worth while; but I'll be hanged if I like it. I would rather be the lowest of the warm-blooded animals than the highest of the cold-blooded. I beg your pardon," he added a little lamely, "I did not mean to put it quite so strong as that." "
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