He straightened up.
"Well, I'd be glad to give it to 'em, if I could only have a chance to know somethin'."
"Know what?"
"Know how a man ought ter live." There was in his voice a deep, vibrant undertone of earnestness.
"It's a great thing to live, isn't it?" She spoke as though pondering some vital question. Jack Harding watched her curiously.
"Some jest half live, schoolma'am."
"That is probably true," she responded, "but God created us capable of something better. He has given us His world to know, and the people in it."
"The people in it," he repeated contemptuously. "Some people are a bad lot, schoolma'am, an' I'm one of 'em."
"You must not speak so of yourself. A man who will protect a woman, in order that she may continue her work unmolested, is not a bad lot. Now I should call you a pretty good sort of a man." A luminous smile. Almost any man would have become her willing slave for that smile.
As her voice gave special emphasis to the word "good," he squared his shoulders again. She continued: