She nodded. "There was nothing to write. And I've been very busy." He drew in his breath, held it for a minute, and let it go again explosively. "Charlotte," said he, presently, "it seems to me I've lost ground with you. I wish I knew why. You know perfectly well that I won't bother you with my suit if you won't listen to it,--at least, I won't bother you with it all the time. I don't promise to give up hope. But what I can't bear is to have you treat me as if you wouldn't have even my friendship any longer. It hurts to hear you say I have no right to care whether you live in a comfortable home or not." She turned impulsively. "Then I take it back. You have a certain right, it's true. You have been a good friend, and I owe you much. It's because I'm foolishly sensitive about this little cottage. I can see, of course, that it looks like a poor place to a man who lives in one of the finest houses in the State of Maryland, but I can't let that influence me. If you happened to be the sort of man who loves to go off into the woods and live in a log shack for a whole hunting-season you'd understand its charm for me. I don't in the least mind washing my face in a tin basin. You do mind." "Not when you offer it. But it's not the tin basin I object to. That is--" "It _is_ the tin basin. You don't like to see a woman live in such a plain way. But I tell you this, Mr. Brant: she can be just as much a woman of refinement--" "My dear girl--" "Yes, I lost my temper for a minute," she admitted. "I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't offend you by implying that you don't know it. What I mean is that the luxuries you consider essential are not essential. I was brought up among them. I loved them as you do. It is good for me to do without them--I am conscious of it every day. I shall be a stronger woman and a better woman if I can learn not to care." "But you haven't wholly learned yet." He said it with satisfaction. "_I have learned!_" She flung it at him. "I don't mind living in this simple way, except when a man like you comes along and tries, deliberately tries, to make me conscious of it." He leaned toward her with a sudden, passionate gesture. "Charlotte, forgive me! It is because I long so to take you away from it, to give you the sort of home you have known in the old days. It fits you so well--that sort of home. You were a princess in the old home; you would be a queen in a new one." "Oh, don't!" "All right, I won't." There was silence between them for some time after this. Brant sat with his hands clenched and resting upon his knees, his head bent a little. Charlotte had turned and laid one bended arm upon the high back of the old bench--her head rested against it. She was the first to speak, in the light tone with which her sex is accustomed to let a situation down from the heights of strong emotion to a more normal level.