Isabel leaned forward eagerly. "You have been thinking about San Francisco!" she exclaimed, triumphantly. "The old Otis blood is beginning to wake up! Hooray!"
Gwynne laughed outright, and for the first time without resentment; he was tired of having California "rammed down his throat." Isabel's eyes were dancing with so purely youthful and feminine a triumph that he could not but feel indulgent.
"I am growing reconciled to my lot. Here I am and here I remain."
"Yes, you are much happier," said Isabel, softly. She half closed her eyes and looked a trifle older. "It worried me dreadfully at first to know that you were unhappy, and that it was my fault."
"Unhappy!" exclaimed Gwynne, reddening haughtily. "I have not been mooning about like a homesick ass—"
"Oh, your outside was as tranquil as your pride demanded—and it was splendid! But I couldn't help knowing—feeling. A thousand little things appeal so directly to a woman's intuitions."
"Indeed! I am delighted to learn that you possess the common intuitions of a woman."
"Am I unwomanly? Masculine?" asked Isabel, anxiously.
"Not in the ordinary sense; but you are much too strong. No woman should be as strong—as, well—as psychically independent as you are. It is as flagrant a usurpation of prerogative as a pretty complexion on a man."
"I only say one prayer: 'Give me strength. Give me strength.'"