"And then I had to look at things as they were. I paid up everything and totaled my bank balance. Every source of income I had ever had was gone and I had left ... three hundred and two dollars. That was on a Friday, the Friday of our last week-end party at the Hollisters' in Westchester.
"You talked to me again that night after we had been playing billiards. Dick, I had made up my mind to take you up. The words were on my lips; I was within a breath of telling you that it was a bargain, that I'd sell myself to you for the things you could buy me....
"I don't know why I didn't. Maybe it was this part of me I had never known until I came here, this part which enthuses so over what lies before me now, the part that used to envy the girls who did things. We went back to town and there was a letter for me from this little frontier law office, telling me I had inherited this ranch. I didn't sleep a minute. I was sole owner of a big business....
"I never can make you understand the relief I experienced! It meant money and money meant that I could go on in the old way, putting off the inevitable, blinding myself to what I actually was.
"That was my motive in coming here: to turn this property into money. And no sooner had I made the acquaintance of these people than I began to learn that my point of view had been radically different from theirs. I had thought that money would give me the thing I wanted, independence and prestige; but I found that with them, with the best of them, anyhow, that sort of standing was not considered.
"The thing that counts out here is being yourself, Dick, in making a place by your determination, your wits, by impressing people with the best that is in you. Material things don't count in the mountains; that is, they don't count primarily. They are nice things to possess but the possession of them alone does not bring respect ... the respect of others or self respect. That, I think, is what I want: respect. That is what I am going to win. The only way I can win it is to establish a place for myself by my own efforts. These men doubt that I can do it. You are right, I believe, when you picture the whole country expecting me to fail. Well, that's an incentive, isn't it, to do my best? That is what I am here to do!
"There, there's Book One." Then looking out into the country.... "There's the rest of the story."
The man did not reply for an instant but stood frowning at the floor.
"And when you fail? What then?"
She laughed almost merrily.