"Now we are both being absurd," she declared, "and I don't want to be
and I don't want you to be. Of course, you can't look at things just as
I do. You belong to a very large world. You spend your life destroying
obstacles. All my people, you know," she went on, "look upon me as
terribly emancipated. They think my mild socialism and my refusal to
listen to such a thing as a chaperon most terribly improper, but at
heart, you know, I am still a very conventional person. I have torn
down a great many conventions, but there are some upon which I cannot
bring myself even to lay my fingers."

"Perhaps it wouldn't be you if you did," he reflected.

"Perhaps not."

"And yet," he went on, "tell me, are you wholly content here? Your
life, in its way, is splendid. You live as much for the benefit of
others as for yourself. You are encouraging the right principle amongst
your yeomen and your farmers. You are setting your heel upon
feudalism--you, the daughter of a race who have always demanded it. You
live amongst these wonderful surroundings, you grow into the bigness of
them, nature becomes almost your friend. It is one of the most
dignified and beautiful lives I ever knew for a woman, and yet--are you
wholly content?"

"I am not," she admitted frankly. "And listen," she went on, after a
moment's pause, "I will show you how much I trust you, how much I really
want you to understand me. I am not completely happy because I know
perfectly well that it is unnatural to live as I do. If I met the man I
could care for and who cared for me, I should prefer to be married." She