"You met him to-day; and you know what I mean. Would it make any difference if I were like him?"
"Why, Phil, dear, how can I answer such a question? I do not know."
"Then it's not because I belong here in this country instead of back East in some city that has made you change?"
"I have changed, I suppose, because I have become a woman, Phil, as you have become a man."
"Yes, I have become a man," he returned, "but I have not changed, except that the boy's love has become a man's love. Would it make any difference, Kitty, if you cared more for the life here—I mean if you were contented here—if these things that mean so much to us all, satisfied you?"
Again she answered, "I do not know, Phil. How can I know?"
"Will you try, Kitty—I mean try to like your old home as you used to like it?"
"Oh, Phil, I have tried. I do try," she cried. "But I don't think it's the life that I like or do not like that makes the difference. I am sure, Phil, that if I could"—she hesitated, then went on bravely—"if I could give you the love you want, nothing else would matter. You said you could like any life that suited me. Don't you think that I could be satisfied with any life that suited the man I loved?"
"Yes," he said, "you could; and that's the answer."
"What is the answer?" she asked.