"Oh, well," I could see Christian charity struggling with Mrs. Shane's profound conviction of the rectitude of her own way of life. "She was a good woman, but no—imagination." She was so pleased to have hit upon a word which carried no intrinsic condemnation that she repeated it. "No imagination whatever. One feels," she modified the edge of her judgment still further, "that so much might have been made out of Mr. Garrett. These self-made men are so difficult."
"Are you difficult?" I demanded when I had retailed the conversation to him that evening.
"I suppose so; anyway I am self-made. She is right so far; I dare say it is badly done. You'll have to take a few tucks in me."
"Not a tuck. I like you the way you are. Oh, I like you ... I like you so!" There was an interval after this before we could go on again.
"Tell me how you made yourself, Helmeth. Don't leave anything out, not a single thing."
"By mistakes mostly. Every time I had made one I knew it was a mistake and I didn't do it again. I don't know that I'm much of a success anyway, but I've got a large assortment of things not to do."
"That was the way I learned how to act; filling in behind!"
"I thought that came by instinct. What counts with a man, is not so much getting to know how to do it, but getting a chance to prove to other people that he knows how."
"I've been through that too," I told him, but he was bent on making himself clear.
"I suppose I ought to tell you, Olivia, I'm only a sort of scab engineer. I haven't any papers."