"On the whole, I think I’d like it better if you _did_ hit back, providing you hit back in the right way. No temper, you understand. No rage, no rumpus and that sort of vulgarity. But real dexterous thrusting and parrying. Now, for example, you missed an opportunity a few moments ago. When I said I’d have liked to have a grandchild I could be proud of, you might have retorted, ’I’m sorry I disappoint you, grandmother, but, perhaps, if _you_ had been Dr. Ballard’s grandmother, his distinction might not have been so great.’ That would have been a silencer, because,—it would have been true. I’m afraid you’re not very clever, my dear." "If that sort of thing—slashing people with one’s tongue, is clever, I’m glad I’m stupid." "There! That’s not so bad! Try again!" applauded the old woman. Katherine turned away, with a gesture of discouragement. "It never occurred to me before," Madam Crewe meditated, "but what you really need is a sense of humor. You’re quite without humor. You’ve brains enough, but you have about as much dash and sparkle as one of your husband-that-is-to-be’s mustard-plasters. Only the mustard-plaster has the advantage of you in sharpness." The girl wheeled about abruptly. "He is not my husband that-is-to-be. I have told you that before." "But the circumstances have changed. Now you know he is distinguished—probably well-to-do——" "It only makes another barrier. Can’t you see? Can’t you understand?" "Perhaps I might, if you’d have the goodness to explain. But you must remember, I’m an old woman. It’s a great many years since I had heroics." "Perhaps you never had them," Katherine retorted. "Perhaps you never were _young_—never cared for any one with all your heart. Perhaps you never had a heart." "Perhaps," agreed Madam Crewe. "In which case, don’t appeal to it. Appeal to my imagination. That, at least, I can vouch for." "I took your word for it, that Dr. Ballard was a young struggling doctor, poor—with, at best, no more than a problematic future—that’s what you said—a problematic future." "Well?" "When I began to suspect he cared for me, I was glad he hadn’t a lot of advantages, to emphasize my want of them. It didn’t seem to me, then, so impossible, that as poor as I should be, and as dull as you’ve always said I am, I might marry him some day, if he loved me. I never cared a rush about that nonsense connected with his grandfather. I wouldn’t have cared, if it had been true. So when you threw mud at _my_ grandfather and father, I didn’t suppose _he’d_ care—or believe it—either. And, he didn’t and—doesn’t. So far, we stood about equal. I could give him as true a love as he could give me. But——"