"Nancy," Dick said with an effort, after a few minutes of silence, "are you all over that? Is it really fair and right of me to take you? I've been puzzling over that lately. I want you on any terms, you know, as far as I am concerned, but I'm a sort of monogamist. If a woman has once cared for a person, no matter who or what that person is, can she ever care again in the same way for any one? Isn't it pity you feel for me, after all?" "No it isn't pity," Nancy said slowly. "I cared for that man until I found that he was the shadow and not the substance. He isn't fit to black your shoes, Dick.--Besides--if--if it was pity," she added irrelevantly, "that's the way to get me started, you know." "If I only have got you started--really." Nancy crossed the two feet of space between them and sank at his feet, leaning her head back against his knee while he stroked her hair silently. "There's one way of proving," she said presently, "if--if you've made a woman really care for you. I should think you'd know that. I told you how you'd made me feel about the bridal bouquet and _Lohengrin_." "Does that prove something?" "Doesn't it?" "I suppose it does. You mean it proves that a woman truly loves a man if he's made her feel that she wants to be an old-fashioned wife--" "And mother, Dick," Nancy finished for him bravely. THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Outside Inn, by Ethel M. Kelley