"No—not even Chicago. It seems to me that I have trouble only when you want the wire."

He laughed, a loud, boyish laugh, that shook the room.

"We had a hard struggle the first time we tried it, didn't we?"

"Rather," she replied.

He looked at her for a few moments without speaking, admiring her large black eyes, the finely arched eyebrows, the delicately chiselled mouth. Then he said:

"You were very patient about it."

"I couldn't do the work if I wasn't patient," she replied quietly.

"But you were exceptionally nice about it," he insisted. "It wasn't the usual external, duty-patience, but the real patience that comes from within. You know what I mean."

She nodded.

"Yes. My mother was the best example of that kind of patience I have ever known. She radiated it."