“Gratitude,” said Doane gently, “becomes less than nothing when it is demanded.”
“True, it can no' be ask', but it can be given.”
“Sometimes”—he was thinking aloud, dangerously—“I wonder if any healthy human act is free from the motive of self-interest. Generosity is so often self-indulgence. Self-sacrifice, even in cases where it may be regarded as wholly sane, may be only a culmination or a confusion of little understood desires.”
She looked up at this; considered it.
“Certainly,” he went on, “your father owes me nothing.”
Her hand moved a little way toward his, only to hesitate and draw back. She looked away, saying in a clouded voice: “He—and I—owe you everything.” It wouldn't do. Doane waited a long moment, then spoke in what seemed more nearly his own proper character—quietly, kindly, with hardly an outward sign of the intensely personal feeling of which his heart was so full.
“Your father has spoken to me of you as an experiment.”
“You mean my life—my education.”
“Yes. He feels, too, that the experiment has not yet been fully worked out. I often think of that—your future. It is interesting, you know. You have responded amazingly to the spirit of the West. And of course you'll have to do something about it.”
“Oh, yes,” said she, musing, “of course.”