She broke in eagerly: "Now I know you know what I mean. Sometimes I think men are—devils." She thrust this word forth, and her little face grew dark and strained. "But the judge kept me from thinking—I never loved my father; he didn't care for me; all he wanted to do was to make ten thousand barrels of beer a year and sell it; and the judge seemed like a father to me till she came and destroyed my faith in him."
"But—well, let Mrs. S. go. There are lots of good men and pure women in the world. It's dangerous to think there aren't—especially for a handsome young woman like you. You can't afford to keep in that kind of a mood long."
She looked at him curiously. "That's what I like about you," she said soberly. "You talk to me as if I had some sense—as if I was a human being. If you were to flatter me, now, and make love to me, I never would believe in any man again."
He smiled again in his frank, good way, and drew a picture from his pocket. It was a picture of a woman bending down over a laughing, naked child, sprawling frogwise in her lap. The woman's face was broad and intellectual and handsome. The look of splendid maternity was in her eyes. They both looked at the picture in silence. The girl sighed.
"I wish I was as good as that woman looks."
"You can be if you try."
"Not with a big Chicago brewer for a father and a husband that beats you whenever the mood takes him."
"I admit that's hard. I think the atmosphere of that Heron Lake hotel isn't any great help to you."
"Oh, they're a gay lot there! We fight like cats and dogs." A look of slyness and boldness came over her face. "Mrs. Shellberg hates me as hard as I do her. She used to go around telling, 'It's very peculiar, you know'"—she imitated her rival's voice—"'but no matter which end of the dining room I sit, all the men look that way!'"
The young lawyer laughed at her in spite of himself.