umiliating thing: with the lovely account it gives of
both of us! But mother's view of a delicacy in things!" she went on
with scathing grimness; "mother's measure of anything, with her grand
'gained cases' (there'll be another yet, she finds them so easy!) of
which she's so publicly proud! You see I've no margin," said Julia;
letting him take it from her flushed face as much as he would that her
mother hadn't left her an inch. It was that he should make use of the
spade with her for the restoration of a bit of a margin just wide
enough to perch on till the tide of peril should have ebbed a little,
it was that he should give her _that_ lift--!

Well, it was all there from him after these last words; it was before
her that he really took hold. "Oh, my dear child, I can see! Of course
there are people--ideas change in our society so fast!--who are not in
sympathy with the old American freedom and who read, I dare say, all
sorts of uncanny things into it. Naturally you must take them as they
are--from the moment," said Murray Brush, who had lighted, by her
leave, a cigarette, "your life-path does, for weal or for woe, cross
with theirs." He had every now and then such an elegant phrase.
"Awfully interesting, certainly, your case. It's enough for me that it
_is_ yours--I make it my own. I put myself absolutely in your place;
you'll understand from me, without professions, won't you? that I do.
Command me in every way! What I do like is the sympathy with which
you've inspired _him_. I don't, I'm sorry to say, happen to know him
personally,"--he smoked away, looking off; "but of course one knows
all about him generally, and I'm sure he's right for you, I'm sure it
would be charming, if you yourself think so. Therefore trust me and
even--what shall I say?--leave it to me a little, won't you?" He had
been watching, as in his fumes, the fine growth of his possibilities;
and with this he turned on her the large warmth of his charity. It was
like a subscription of a half-a-million. "I'll take care of you."

She found herself for a moment looking up at him from as far below as
the point from which the school-child, with round eyes raised to the
wall, gazes at the parti-colored map of the world. Yes, it was a
warmth, it was a special benignity, that had never yet dropped on her
from any one; and she wouldn't for the first few moments have known
how to describe it or even quite what to do with it. Then, as it still
rested, his fine