“Reform? You don’t need to reform. You are perfectly delightful as you are, and I know no man who is worthy of you. That’s a woman’s opinion; one who knows you well, and there is nothing dishonest about the opinion, either, in spite of your tirade against our sex.”
“Dorothy, three days ago, be the same more or less, I received a letter from John Lamont.”
“Yes, I saw it on the table, and surmised it was from him.”
“Did you? You were quite right. The reading of that letter has revolutionized my character. I am a changed woman, Dorothy, and thoroughly ashamed of myself. When I remember how I have deluded that poor, credulous young man, in making him believe I understood even the fringe of what he spoke about, it fills me with grief at my perfidy, but I am determined to amend my ways if hard study will do it, and when next I see him I shall talk to him worthily like a female Thomas A. Edison.”
Again Dorothy laughed.
“Now, that’s heartless of you, Dorothy. Don’t you see I’m in deadly earnest? Must my former frivolity dog my steps through life? When I call to mind that I made fun to you of his serious purpose in life, the thought makes me cringe and despise myself.”
“Nonsense, Kate, don’t go to the other extreme. I remember nothing you have said that needs withdrawal. You have never made a malicious remark in your life, Kate. Don’t make me defend you against yourself. You have determined, I take it, to plunge into the subjects which interest the man you are going to marry. That is a perfectly laudable ambition, and I am quite sure you will succeed.”
“I know I don’t deserve all that, Dorothy, but I like it just the same. I like people to believe in me, even if I sometimes lose faith in myself. May I read you an extract from his letter?”
“Don’t if you’d rather not.”
“I’d rather, Dorothy, if it doesn’t weary you, but you will understand when you have heard it, in what a new light I regard myself.”