When they were once more in the street, walking toward the car, he began abruptly: “I came over here--to America--because I was ruined--because we were going to be sold up and chucked out in the autumn. I came--I’m ashamed to put it into words--I’d rather you’d imagine--you can, easy enough. It’s often done and nothing’s thought of it--at least on our side of the water. This morning--in fact, just before luncheon--I got a cable from my sister. Our luck has turned, and----” “I’m very glad,” she murmured as he paused. “I don’t wish to go back,” he went on impetuously, his drawl gone. “I wish--it’s you I want. And I ask you to give me a chance. I don’t think I’m such a frightfully bad sort, as men go. And while I ain’t fit for you to walk on, where’s the man that is? And perhaps if I were less fit I couldn’t care for you--all the height from down where I am to up where you are.” The storm which had burst from deep down within him, deeper far than he thought his nature extended, was so sweeping and whirling him that he could not see her face distinctly. When she spoke it was in a voice that took away hope, but gently, soothing the wound it made. “I’m sorry,” she said, “and yet I’m not. No woman could help being pleased to hear what you’ve said to me, and hear it from such a man as you are. Oh, yes!”--this in answer to his expression--“for I’ve found out what sort of man lives behind your look of irony and indifference. A so much better man than he lets himself know--or show. And I understand how differently you’ve been brought up, how different your system is from ours. But----” She hesitated, and somehow he felt that he must give her sympathy instead of asking it. “You remember, I told you that when I began with the school I had the right sort of help?” He looked away from her and it was black before him for an instant. “That fairish chap with the eyes--Mr. Worthington?” he asked, cutting his words off sharp. She nodded, her cheeks bright. “I simply couldn’t help it,” she said. “He _was_ what I longed to be. And he didn’t preach the things I believed in--he just lived them.” They were silent until they were in the car, then she went on: “I don’t want you to misunderstand. He has never even looked--what I’d like him to look--and say. I don’t know whether he cares--probably not. Sometimes I think he cares only for his work, and----” “He does care--I saw it,” interrupted Frothingham, and then he was astonished at himself for being so “ridiculously decent.” “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “Thank you for saying so.” She looked at him shyly. “You’ll think me queer for telling you about it when he has said nothing to me.” [Illustration: “_I take to it like a duck to water_”] “I understand why you tell me,” Frothingham answered. “It was--like you.” He smiled faintly, his frequent, self-satirising smile. “Don’t mind me. I’m used to bad luck. I take to it like a duck to water.”