"Oh," she whispered, "I couldn't do that."
"That's the best way," he said kindly. "Andy has all the finer instincts. But he has a lot of inhibitions you don't know anything about. I don't think you really understand class feeling, Isabel. You seem to be free of it altogether. But it exists. Believe me, I speak both from experience and observation. It is next to impossible to build a bridge across a definite social gulf. You have to jump it—from one side or the other. People are apt to deny this in a supposedly democratic country. But it's truer than they think. You put Andy in dress clothes and turn him loose in your own crowd, and he'd get by with very little coaching. But he wouldn't stick. He'd say it was shoddy. Which you and I and Mary are agreed it is. But in contact with intellect, art, real achievement in the best sense, Andy not only asserts his equality, but would get a glow of enjoyment out of the association. Andy Hall's character is sterling, and that's above any class distinction. If Andy really cares for you, Isabel, I'd say you were justified in going to extremes to let him know where you stand."
"I can't go all the way myself," she whispered, and fell silent, staring moodily over the channel waters. Then she got up and went inside.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A day or two later Rod came back to that conversation.
"I keep thinking of Laska," he said to Isabel. "Is she really so soured on things as you declared? Is she deliberately hitting the high spots just for the kick there's in it?"
"I'll tell the listening world she is," Isabel replied.
"I wonder why?" Rod mused. "She's free, young, and well-off. At least, she has all the advantages of wealth."
"Several whys," Isabel answered. "Her mind isn't healthy. It's twisted, or tainted or something. She started out several years ago with a lot of sentimental illusions. Matrimony, as she experienced it, was—well, unsatisfactory. Laska backed the wrong horse in the marriage race, and didn't discover it until too late. You don't mind my saying that Grove was a good deal of a mucker in his private life?"