"Oh, Letitia!" he exclaimed in quite a different tone--a man's tone of sudden revolt and protest. "Tod McCormick?" "Yes, of course, Tod McCormick. I should think you would have guessed him in a minute." "He's the last person I ever should have thought of." "Well, isn't that odd! Everybody knows Tod's been fond of me. It's been going on for years--five or six, I should think." "A woman doesn't marry a man because he happens to be fond of her. She marries a man because she happens to be fond of him." "She sometimes does--if she's very lucky, and things turn out exactly right. But things don't often turn out exactly right. Besides, I like Tod." "Yes--like him, of course. Everybody likes him. Maud likes him, and Mortimer, and, I've no doubt, hundreds of other people. But liking's a poor sort of thing to marry on. It's a bad substitute for love. A woman ought to love the man she marries." "Yes, I suppose she ought; and in novels she always does--unless she hates him terribly. But in real life girls don't love or hate so desperately as all that. We just go along easily, taking things as they come." "Why are you going to marry him, if you don't love him?" he asked in a tone of irritation. "I think it's better to marry. You see, there isn't really anything else for a girl like me to do. Besides,--don't misunderstand me,--I tell you I like him very much." He ignored the remark and said: "I don't see what you want to marry for at all. Wait till the right man comes along." "Oh, the right man!" she answered, with a little laugh which was the nearest approach to a bitter laugh he had ever heard from her. "That's what they keep telling us. But we may have met the right man, and he's never found out that he was the right man, or perhaps hasn't felt that we were the right woman." "A man must be a fool if he can't see when a woman cares for him," he answered. For a moment Letitia looked silently out of the window; then she continued, but without turning her head: "Men seem to think that women can marry any one they want. We have to wait till we're asked. And the men that ask us are not always the men that we would like the best. Novelists would make you think a girl has nothing to do but make her choice from dozens of suitors who are all crazy about her. But that's not true--not in California, anyway. I've only had three real offers in my life, and I've got money, and"--she made a little pause, and then added bravely--"and I'm handsome." Gault leaned forward, and, in a sudden élan of admiration for the honest, simple, strong-hearted creature, took her hand. "Dearest Tishy," he said, "don't do this. Don't make a hasty marriage with a man who is--who is--not worthy of you." Her hand remained motionless for a moment, and then she drew it away.