"Can't say that you understand me. Why do you think I am doing this?"
She colored. "Oh, no indeed, Mr. Keith," she protested, "I don't think you are in love with me—or anything of that sort. Indeed, I do not. I know you better than that."
"Really?" said he, amused. "Then you are not human."
"How can you think me so vain?" she protested.
"Because you are so," replied he. "You are as vain—no more so, but just as much so—as the average pretty and attractive woman brought up as you have been. You are not obsessed by the notion that your physical charms are all-powerful, and in that fact there is hope for you. But you attach entirely too much importance to them. You will find them a hindrance for a long time before they begin to be a help to you in your career. And they will always be a temptation to you to take the easy, stupid way of making a living—the only way open to most women that is not positively repulsive."
"I think it is the most repulsive," said Mildred.
"Don't cant," replied he, unimpressed. "It's not so repulsive to your sort of woman as manual labor—or as any kind of work that means no leisure, no luxury and small pay."
"I wonder," said Mildred. "I—I'm afraid you're right. But I WON'T admit it. I don't dare."
"That's the finest, truest thing I've ever heard you say," said Keith.
Mildred was pleased out of all proportion to the compliment. Said she with frank eagerness, "Then I'm not altogether hopeless?"