"Yes, you've heard of him, of course. It gives one a curious feeling, doesn't it, to learn that dead people, or people who are as good as dead, have had their lives? I know, I know ... I think you'd have liked Milton Leffert. He was very quiet and not at all striking in appearance, but he was strong and there was no nonsense about him. He was more than ten years older than I. I had known him only slightly before that time. Then after Father's death he began coming to see me a good deal and we fell into the habit of walking and driving together. I always liked him. I loved talking with him; he was the first man I ever talked much with on serious subjects. He stimulated me, and I enjoyed being with him. Only, it never occurred to me that he could be the Real Man.
"You've often heard of women refusing men because of their poverty. Well, the chief thing that prejudiced me against Milton Leffert was his wealth. He happened to possess a large fortune made and left to him by his father, and he didn't do much except take care of it, together with that of his sister Jane. He was president of the one concern his father had not sold out before he died, but that was the sort of thing that ran itself; he didn't spend an hour a day at it. That wasn't much of a career, according to the way I thought at that time, and when he first began asking me to marry him I laughed outright.
"'You can't know me very well, Milton,' I said, 'if you suppose I could be content with a ready-made man. I like you very much, but you're not the husband for me.'
"'What do you mean by a ready-made man?' he asked, looking at me out of his quiet gray eyes.
"'I should say it was sufficiently obvious,' I said. 'There's nothing the matter with you, and I hate to hurt you, but—well, you're not dynamic.'
"I stopped to see how he would take that. He was silent for a while, then at last he said: 'I don't think that's a very good reason for refusing a man.'
"I laughed; the grave way he said it was so characteristic of him. 'Oh, Milton,' I said, 'I really think that's the only reason in the world to make me refuse a man. I don't much believe I shall ever marry, but if I do it will be to a man that I can help win his fight in the world; somebody with whom I can march side by side through life, whom I alone can help and encourage and inspire! He's got to be the kind that will start at the bottom and work his way up to the top, and who couldn't do it without me! That's not you, Milton. You have no fight to make—your father made it for you. You start in at the top, the wrong end. Of course there are still higher summits you could aim for, but you never will, Milton. You're not that kind; you'll hold on to what you have, and no more. I'm not blaming you; you were made that way. And there must be a great many people like you in the world. And I like you none the less. Only I can't marry you.'
"'But I don't see what difference all this would make,' he said, 'if you only loved me.'
"'My dear man,' said I, 'don't you see that it's only that sort of a man who could make me love him? If you had it in you, I suppose I should love you. You don't suppose I could love you without that, do you? I'm afraid you don't understand me very well, Milton!'
"'I'm learning all the time,' he answered, and that was the nearest thing to a witty or humorous remark that I ever heard him make.