"Not exactly that."
"Insignificant then."
"Isn't she?"
"Yes—in a way," said Josephine, the condescending note in her voice again—and in his mind Miss Hallowell's clever burlesque of that note. "But, in another way—Men are different from women. Now I—a woman of my sort—couldn't stoop to a man of her class. But men seem not to feel that way."
"No," said he, irritated. "They've the courage to take what they want wherever they find it. A man will take gold out of the dirt, because gold is always gold. But a woman waits until she can get it at a fashionable jeweler's, and makes sure it's made up in a fashionable way. I don't like to hear you say those things."
Her eyes flashed. "Then you do like that Hallowell girl!" she cried—and never before had her voice jarred upon him.
"That Hallowell girl has nothing to do with this," he rejoined. "I like to feel that you really love me—that you'd have taken me wherever you happened to find me—and that you'd stick to me no matter how far I might drop."
"I would! I would!" she cried, tears in her eyes. "Oh, I didn't mean that, Fred. You know I didn't—don't you?"
She tried to put her arms round his neck, but he took her hands and held them. "Would you like to think I was marrying you for what you have?—or for any other reason whatever but for what you are?"
It being once more a question of her own sex, the obstinate line appeared round her mouth. "But, Fred, I'd not be me, if I were—a working girl," she replied.