He nodded listlessly.
“To begin with,” she began, quietly, dreading her task, “we as a people are selfish. We are isolated here–are far from the center of things–but only certain things. We are quite our own center in certain other ways. But we are selfish as regards advancement, and being selfish in this way–being what we are and where we are–we live solely for that advancement–for the privilege of doing what we will, and of knowing! It is the first law of the country down here–of my people! We have aims and aspirations and courage all peculiar to ourselves. And when we meet your type, as I met you, we come–(Now, stop me when I get too severe!)–we come to know our own values a little better–to respect ourselves, perhaps–though perhaps, too, I shouldn’t say it–a little more. Not that you lack virtues, you Easterners, but they differ from ours–and probably only in kind. And exactly what your type is you yourself have made plain to me during our many little trips together in the saddle. And–and now I fear I must become even more personal,” she broke off. “And I am very sorry that I must. Though I know you will forgive me. You will, won’t you?” And she looked up at him wistfully. “You thought it might benefit you to know. This is only my opinion. Others may not see it this way. But I am giving it for what it is, and I am giving it only because you asked it and have asked it repeatedly.”
He roused himself. “Go on,” he said, with evident forced lightness. “I see your viewpoint perfectly.”
“Well,” she resumed, hurriedly, “you lack ambition–a real ambition. You have ridden horses, played tennis, idled about clubs. You were a coddled and petted child, a pampered and spoiled youth. You attended a dozen schools, and, to use your own language, were ‘canned’ out of all of them. Which about sums up your activities. You have idled your time away, and you give every promise of continuing. I regret that I must say that, but I regret more deeply that it is true. You have many admirable qualities. You have the greatest of all qualities–power for sincere love. But in the qualities which make one acceptable down here–Wait! I’ll change that. In the qualities which would make one acceptable to me you are lacking to a very considerable degree. And it is just there that you fill me with the greatest doubt–doubt so grave, indeed, that I cannot–and I use the verb advisedly–cannot permit myself to like you in the way you want me to like you.”
Again he bestirred himself. “What is that, please? What is that quality?”
“I have tried to tell you,” she rejoined, patiently. “It is a really worth-while ambition. You lack the desire to do something, the desire to be something–a desire that ought to have been yours, should have been yours, years ago–the thing part and parcel of our blood down here. It may take shape in any one of a hundred different things–business ventures; personal prospectings; pursuit of art, science; raising cattle–anything, Stephen! But something, something which will develop a real value, both to yourself and to your fellow-man. We have it. We have inherited it. We got it from our grandfathers–our great-grandfathers, in a few cases–men who wanted to know–to learn–to learn by doing. It is a powerful force. It must be a powerful force, it must have been strong within them, for it dragged them out of the comforts of civilization and led them into the desert. But they found what they sought; and in finding what they sought they found themselves also. And what they found–”
“Was something which, having drawn them forward to the frontier, filled them with dislike for those who remained behind?”
“If you wish to put it that way–yes.” Her answer was straight and clean-cut.
“But what of those who remained behind?” asked Stephen, alert now. “Surely the quality was there! It must be there yet! Those of the old-timers who remained behind must have stayed simply because of circumstances. Good men often curb the adventurous spirit out of sheer conscientious regard for others who–”
“It is you, Stephen!” interrupted Helen, quietly. “It is you, yourself. All Easterners are not like you, I well know. Yet you and your type are found in all parts of the East.”