"Oh," she murmurs, as if convinced by his logic, "I'm good for nothing—I can't even be a good mother!"
"You are good for everything—for me!"
But Milly is not ready yet. In this sort of transaction she has grown to be a more expert trader than she was once.
"It must be the right man," she observes impersonally.
And the Ranchman takes another start. He paints glowingly the freedom and the beauty of that outdoors life on the Pacific Coast,—the fragrant lemon orchard with its golden harvest of yellow balls, the velvety heavens spangled with stars each night, the blooming roses, etc., etc. But he cannot keep long off the personal note.
"I've sat there nights on my veranda, and thought and thought of you, Milly, until it seemed as though you were really there by my side and I could almost touch you."
"Really!" Milly is becoming moved in spite of herself. Somehow Duncan's words have a genuine ring to them. "I believe," she muses, "that you are the sort of man who could care always for a woman."
"I always have cared for one woman!"
"You are good, Edgar."
"I don't know about that. Good hasn't much to do between men and women when they love.... It's always love that counts, isn't it?"