"
"Perhaps you want too much," he suggested.
"Perhaps," she agreed wearily; "ease and pretty clothes and--a man."
She added the latter with a more musical inflection than he had yet
heard.
"Of course," he proceeded importantly, "there are not a great many men.
At least I haven't found them. As you say, most people are incapable of
any power or decision. I always maintain it's something in the country.
Now in----" He stopped, re-began: "In Europe they are different. There
a man is better understood, and women as well."
"I have never been out of America," Miss Beggs admitted.
"But you might well have been," he assured her; "you are more
Continental than any one else I can think of."
He moved toward the middle of the bench and she said quickly: "You must
not misunderstand. I am not cheap nor silly. It might have been better
for me." She addressed the fading light on the sea. "Silly women, too,
do remarkably well. But I am not young enough to change now." She rose,
gracefully drawn against space; her firm chin was elevated and her
hands clenched. "I won't grow old this way and shrivel like an apple,"
she half cried.
It would be a pity, he told himself, watching her erect figure diminish
over the boardwalk. He had a feeling of having come in contact with an
extraordinarily potent force. By heaven, she positively crackled! He
smiled, thinking of the misguided people who had employed her, ignorant
of all that underlay that severe prudent manner.
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