good one. I think people are very much alike. You are more different than
any one I have met for some time, but I know that there are a great many
more at home like you. And even you--I believe there is a real creature
down under these custom-made prejudices that save you the trouble of
thinking. If you and I were shipwrecked on a desert island, I have no
doubt that we would come to a simple and natural understanding. I'm
neither a coward nor a shirk. You would find, if you had to undertake any
enterprise of danger or difficulty with a woman, that there are several
qualifications quite as important as the one to which you doubtless
refer."

McKann felt nervously for his watch-chain. "Of course," he brought out,
"I am not laying down any generalizations--" His brows wrinkled.

"Oh, aren't you?" murmured Kitty. "Then I totally misunderstood. But
remember"--holding up a finger--"it is you, not I, who are afraid to
pursue this subject further. Now, I'll tell you something." She leaned
forward and clasped her slim, white hands about her velvet knee. "I am
as much a victim of these ineradicable prejudices as you. Your
stenographer seems to you a better sort. Well, she does to me. Just
because her life is, presumably, greyer than mine, she seems better. My
mind tells me that dulness, and a mediocre order of ability, and poverty,
are not in themselves admirable things. Yet in my heart I always feel
that the sales-women in shops and the working girls in factories are more
meritorious than I. Many of them, with my opportunities, would be more
selfish than I am. Some of them, with their own opportunities, are more
selfish. Yet I make this sentimental genuflection before the nun and the
charwoman. Tell me, haven't you any weakness? Isn't there any foolish
natural thing that unbends you a trifle and makes you feel gay?"

"I like to go fishing."

"To see how many fish you can catch?"

"No, I like the woods and the weather. I like to play a fish and work
hard for him. I like the pussy-willows and the cold; and the sky,
whether it's blue or grey--night coming on, every thing about it."

He spoke devoutly, and Kitty watched him through half-closed eyes. "And
you like to feel that there are light-minded girls like me, who only care
about the inside of shops and theatres and hotels, eh? You amuse me, you
and your fish! But I mustn't keep you any longer. Haven't I given you
every opportunity to state your case against me? I thought y