"I wish you would keep still. You didn't talk half so much in England. I shall hate you if you become wholly American."
"I am a born egotist. Ask my mother. Or my long-suffering friends and constituents. You did all the talking at Capheaton—or gave me a wide berth. But here my mother neither talks nor listens—" He paused suddenly and lowered his voice. "Is anything the matter with my mother, do you think? I never saw any one so changed. Do you suppose she hates California and is staying here only on my account?—I have offered more than once to pay her bills; and she is used to them, anyway. For heaven's sake persuade her to go back and enjoy herself in her own fashion. I really don't need her—haven't time. And in spite of your liberal thorns and maddening incomprehensibilities, you can always put homesickness to flight. Sometimes I think she is ill, and then again she looks as fit as ever."
"She has developed nerves. All women get them sometime or other. And there is a certain order of women with whom beauty and fascination are a vocation. When those pass they hate life."
"What rot. No doubt she's a bit off her feed and restless. Probably the climate doesn't suit her. Heaven knows it is nervous enough. But I don't pretend to understand women. What's up with you? Didn't you enjoy being a belle, after all?"
"I was not a belle. I was a distinct failure."
"What?" Gwynne sat up and forward. "If you want to psychologize, fire away. It always interests me."
"I have no intention of psychologizing. I haven't had time to think. But I do know that a life lived all on the surface—and at lightning speed—doesn't suit me a bit." She gave him a rapid sketch of her week. "I was with them, but not of them; no doubt of that. Old Mr. Toole told me one day that I was a dreamer, and I am afraid that is the solution. I like to imagine myself doing things, but I don't like actually doing them. I found that out over and over again in Europe. I can't tell you how I have longed for a girl's good time here in San Francisco—denied all these years, and my birthright. I was bored everywhere. I cannot make talk; I can only talk spontaneously when I am interested. I couldn't even enjoy the dancing—for the prospect of entertaining those brats between times. And they were all afraid of me. I never could be a belle like either the old ones or the new ones; the fault lies wholly in myself, not in circumstances or materials. I don't really want it. No girl can be a social success unless she cares tremendously for it. Merely pretty girls are often popular, simply because popularity is the breath of life to them. I wouldn't try it again for anything on earth. I long to be at home watching the marsh, and not a soul to talk to. That was all I was made for. A dreamer! I am terribly disappointed."
"But Society is a mere phase. So is Stone's Bohemia. The town is full of clever people. You can select and form your own set—when you are ready."
"I am afraid I don't care about it. I dislike the actual effort. So long as Mr. Hofer and those men are talking I am interested, but even so I have enjoyed—far more—thinking about and planning to know them. I am nothing but a dreamer."
"And you have just discovered that?" asked Gwynne, curiously. "I may not have made an exhaustive study of woman, but up to a certain point I know you; and I have not waited for Father O'Toole to enlighten me. I could have told you that you would hate all this sort of thing. You had a mere taste of it in English country-houses, where entertaining has reached such a point of perfection that a man never feels so much at home as when in some one's else house. If you had waited for a London season you would have been as quickly disillusioned. You have the most impossible ideals—"