The girl wheeled about abruptly. "He is not my husband that-is-to-be. I have told you that before."
"But the circumstances have changed. Now you know he is distinguished—probably well-to-do——"
"It only makes another barrier. Can't you see? Can't you understand?"
"Perhaps I might, if you'd have the goodness to explain. But you must remember, I'm an old woman. It's a great many years since I had heroics."
"Perhaps you never had them," Katherine retorted. "Perhaps you never were young—never cared for any one with all your heart. Perhaps you never had a heart."
"Perhaps," agreed Madam Crewe. "In which case, don't appeal to it. Appeal to my imagination. That, at least, I can vouch for."
"I took your word for it, that Dr. Ballard was a young struggling doctor, poor—with, at best, no more than a problematic future—that's what you said—a problematic future."
"Well?"
"When I began to suspect he cared for me, I was glad he hadn't a lot of advantages, to emphasize my want of them. It didn't seem to me, then, so impossible, that as poor as I should be, and as dull as you've always said I am, I might marry him some day, if he loved me. I never cared a rush about that nonsense connected with his grandfather. I wouldn't have cared, if it had been true. So when you threw mud at my grandfather and father, I didn't suppose he'd care—or believe it—either. And, he didn't and—doesn't. So far, we stood about equal. I could give him as true a love as he could give me. But——"
"Oho! So that's your idea. I see your point now. You've got the kind of love that weighs and balances, have you? You won't take more than you can give! Why, young miss, let me tell you, you may think that's high-flown and noble—it's no such thing! If you want to know what it is, it's your great-grandfather's arrogance turned inside out, that's all! If you refuse to marry the man you love, because you have nothing to offer him, you're as bad as I was when I refused because my lover had nothing to offer me. There's a pride of poverty that's as detestable as the pride of riches. You talk about love! You don't know what the word means. If you did, you'd see that the real thing is beyond such mean dickering. In love fair exchange is low snobbery."