"Why not? I'm a nobody. I'm worse; I'm an amateur! You ought to hear what Duane has to say about amateurs!"
"But, Scott, you don't have to be anything in particular except what you are——"
"What am I?" he demanded.
"Why—yourself."
"And what's that?" He grew redder. "I'll tell you, Kathleen. I'm merely a painfully wealthy young man. Don't laugh; this is becoming deadly serious to me. By my own exertions I've never done one bally thing either useful or spectacular. I'm not distinguished by anything except an unfair share of wealth. I'm not eminent, let alone pre-eminent, even in that sordid class; there are richer men, plenty of them—some even who have made their own fortunes and have not been hatched out in a suffocating plethora of affluence like the larva of the Carnifex tumble-bug——"
"Scott!"
"And I!" he ended savagely. "Why, I'm not even pre-eminent as far as my position in the social puddle is concerned; there are sets that wouldn't endure me; there's at least one club into which I couldn't possibly wriggle; there are drawing-rooms where I wouldn't be tolerated, because I've nothing on earth to recommend me or to distinguish me from Algernon FitzNoodle and Montmorency de Sansgallette except an inflated income! What have I to offer anybody worth while for entertaining me? What have I to offer you, Kathleen, in exchange for yourself?"
He was becoming boyishly dramatic with sweeping gestures which amazed her; but she was conscious that it was all sincere and very real to him.
"Scott, dear," she began sweetly, uncertain how to take it all; "kindness, loyalty, and decent breeding are all that a woman cares for in a man——"
"You are entitled to more; you are entitled to a man of distinction, of attainment, of achievement——"