"No," Margaret admitted sadly. "I never went to school after I was sixteen." Daniel breathed again and beamed upon her so approvingly that she hastened to add: "But I lived here with Uncle Osmond, so I could not escape a little book-learning. I'm really not an ignorant person for my years, Mr. Leitzel."
"I can see that you are not," Daniel graciously allowed. "Are you fond of reading?" he added, conversationally, not dreaming how stupid the question seemed to the young lady he addressed.
"Well, naturally," she said.
"Yes, I suppose so, with such a library as this in the house. It belongs to—to you?"
"What? The books?" she vaguely repeated. "They go, of course, with the house. Do you accomplish much reading outside of your profession, Mr. Leitzel?"
"No."
"Not even an occasional novel?"
"I never read novels. I did read 'Ivanhoe' at Harvard in the freshman English course. But that's the only one."
Margaret stared for an instant, then recovered herself. "I see now," she said, "why you have done what they call 'made good.' You have specialized, excluding from your life every other possible interest save that one little goal of your ambition."
"'Little goal?' Not very little, Miss Berkeley! The law business of which I am the head earns a yearly income of——"