"I'm not going to argue about that in the least, Grace, except to say that it's the Rawn half of you that said that. The Rawn half of you can't see anything but its own part of the world. It wasn't the Rawn half of you that I married. You were different, then. You're not much like your mother, Grace! And I married the part of you that was like your mother. She was a good woman, and a good wife." "You must not speak of her!" "Oh, yes, I must, and I shall when I like. It's all in evidence. There's the record." He nodded toward the two dim figures at the other end of the gallery. "She's very beautiful, yes, very beautiful!" His eyes lingered on the figure of Virginia Rawn, faintly outlined, cool in satin and laces. "She'd like to hear you say that!" sneered his wife. "I perceive, my dear, that you two love each other very much. But as I was saying, you don't seem to me, Grace, to be much like your own mother--you're more like your stepmother, over there, in some ways. Your mother didn't change. She made good--if you'll let me use some more factory slang--on the old ways, on her own old lines. That's what I call class, breeding, blood, if you like--just plain North American sincerity and simplicity. She didn't pretend, she didn't try to climb where she knew she couldn't go. That's what _I_ call blood!" "Thank you! You're sincere also, at least." V He seemed not to hear her. He went on. "But you've changed. You dropped me. Your head was turned with all this sort of thing.... Since these things are true, are you coming back to me?" He found himself wrenching his eyes away from the cool dim figure far down the long gallery. She straightened up suddenly, pale. "Back!--to that? To live in that hole--?" "Yes, just back to _that_, Grace. It's all I have to offer you. Just that hole." "I'm not happy here." "Then why do you stay here? Why don't you come back to me?" "Because I couldn't be happy over there any more, either! I know it. I admit it. It's got me--I couldn't go back to the old ways, the ways we'd have to live. Why can't you come here--why doesn't Pa give us money enough--" He turned to her now gravely. "I suppose it's the pace--yes, it's got you, and a lot of others. But I'm not taking that sort of money just yet. And that doesn't answer my question. I've come over to-night to arrive at some understanding about us two. I want to know where I am. There are going to be changes, one way or another." She turned to him suddenly again. "What's wrong over at that factory, Charley?" she asked. "Why haven't you made good before this? My father has been on the point of tearing up things a dozen times! He's sore at you--awfully sore." "Yes? How do you know I haven't made good?" "Then why has Pa talked so?" "For the very good reason that he doesn't know any better than to talk that way. He hasn't got any more sense. He didn't talk that way to me."