Said she at length--any woman and almost any man can supply the preliminary or leading-up conversation: “What a fascinating career you will have! Oh, I know you haven’t told me about it. You simply won’t talk about yourself, and have made me tell you everything about myself from bibs up. But I can guess your career.” “We had only got you as far as short dresses,” said he. “When you left that boarding school----” “Nothing since,” interrupted she. “I’ve simply been sitting round waiting for a husband. What else is there for a woman? Still, I never wish I’d been a man.” “Why not?” asked George. He was twisted into one of his strange poses--legs wound round each other, body bent forward, supported by his elbows. He had never been so blissfully, airily happy as watching this beautiful girl, with the most wonderful light he had ever beheld reflecting from her fair shoulders. She looked at him with eyes suddenly grave. “Because as a woman I have the chance to be some day loved by a man. As a man”--her eyes danced--“I’d have had nothing to look forward to but just a woman.” “What kind of a man do you want?” asked he--and his honest, rugged face showed in its frank innocence how impersonal the question was. “A man like you,” said she audaciously, her face merry. He laughed loudly--a contagious outburst of joyous good humor that made the luxurious, conventional room seem a poor sort of place. Such a laugh is a very different matter from one that seems a poor, noisy sort of clamor in a room. “You have courage--strength. You don’t pose.” All this she said with the lightness that made it in good taste--and none the less sincere. “You are on the side all these other men have deserted as soon as they became prosperous.” “Perhaps I shall, too,” said he. “I suppose it must be the wrong side, or surely all of them wouldn’t have left it. But--somehow, I think you won’t.” “I can’t,” said he. And _he_--his real self--began to look from his eyes--and to look at her. In spite of herself, she became serious. “No--you can’t,” assented she, absently. “You’ve changed--every time I’ve seen you. But not in that one respect. Whenever I look at you, I still see--as I did that first time--farms and factories--and thousands of men and women at work----” “And children,” he interrupted, a strange, somehow ferocious note in his quiet voice. “I don’t forget them,” said she. “I try to, but I don’t.... No, you’ll not change sides. And you’ll marry some woman on that side, and she’ll----” “I’ll marry the woman I want--when I can afford to marry,” said he. “Women aren’t on one side or the other. This is a man’s fight. A woman--she goes with the man who takes her.” She smiled with some raillery. “Be careful to select the woman of that sort,” said she, “or you may have to change your mind--suddenly and rather disagreeably--about women.” He made a large gesture of indifference. “You don’t care about women?” she asked.