"Perhaps it's because I haven't had from life itself much of what I'd like to have," Annie was going on, "that I've made a world within. Can't let life cheat us, Ruth," she said brightly. "If we can't have things in one way--have to get them in another." Again Ruth looked at her in that startled way. Annie did not see it, reaching over for more asparagus; she was all the time working along in that quick, sure way--doing what she was doing cleverly and as if it weren't very important. "Perhaps, Ruth," she said after a minute, "that that's why my school-girl fancy for you persisted--deepened--the way it has." She hesitated, then said simply: "I liked you for not letting life cheat you." She looked up with a quick little nod as she said that but found Ruth's face very serious, troubled. "But I don't think I've done what you mean, Annie," she began uncertainly. "I did what I did--because I had to. And I'm afraid I haven't--gone on. It begins to seem to me now that I've stayed in a pretty small place. I've been afraid!" she concluded with sudden scorn. "That isn't much wonder," Annie murmured gently. "But with me," she took it up after a little, "I've had to go on." Her voice went hard in saying it. "Things would have just shut right down on me if I would have let them," she finished grimly. "I married for passion," she began quietly after a minute. "Most people do, I presume. At least most people who marry young." Ruth colored. She was not used to saying things right out like that. "Romantic love is a wonderful thing," Annie pursued; "I suppose it's the most beautiful thing in the world--while it lasts." She laughed in a queer, grim little way and gave a sharp twist to the knot she was tying. "Sometimes it opens up to another sort of love--love of another quality--and to companionship. It must be a beautiful thing--when it does that." She hesitated a moment before she finished with a dryness that had that grim quality: "With me--it didn't. "So there came a time," she went on, and seemed newly to have gained serenity, "when I saw that I had to give up--go under--or get through myself what I wasn't going to get through anyone else. Oh, it's not the beautiful way--not the complete way. But it's one way!" she flashed in fighting voice. "I fought for something, Ruth. I held it. I don't know that I've a name for it--but it's the most precious thing in life. My life itself is pretty limited; aside from the children"--she softened in speaking of them--"my life is--pretty barren. And as for the children"--that fighting spirit broke sharply through, "they're all the more reason for not sinking into things--not sinking into _them_," she laughed. As she stopped there Ruth asked eagerly, eyes intently upon her: "But just what is it you mean, Annie? Just what is it you fought for--kept?" "To be my _own_!" Annie flashed back at her, like steel.