“I’ve offered her a place in my office back in town,” he said. “I guess she don’t hate Diversity as bad as she says she does, or she’d take it. But the offer holds good, Marie. Any time. Any time.” The widow ruffled her feathers. “Marie’s goin’ to stay right where she is. Maybe Diversity hain’t a suburb of heaven; maybe teachin’ school’s a long ways from strummin’ a harp in Paradise; but Marie’s got too much sense to go flutterin’ off like a blind owl in the sunshine, not knowin’ what she’s like to bump her head against.” Marie turned slowly on the widow. “When the time comes to choose I’ll choose,” she said, speaking, it seemed, not to the widow, but to herself. The widow looked puzzled; even Moran seemed not to understand; but Jim understood. In the light of his first meeting with Marie on the knoll he comprehended the significance of her words, the rashness, the worldly wisdom of them. Hers would be no blindfold journey. If she spread her wings for flight it would be with eyes wide and seeing; it would be on a calculated course, and the cost would be itemized. He saw that she read Moran better than he had done, and in the light of her knowledge the page of Moran’s soul became more legible to him. Before Moran had been an adversary--no chivalric adversary; now he felt a cold hatred for the man, a personal, throbbing hatred coupled with a stinging, physical aversion. From that moment Moran became a snake to be scotched. “There’s a lot less choosin’ in this world than folks think there is,” said the widow. “Folks spends a heap of time separatin’ in their minds what they’re goin’ to do from what they hain’t—gen’ally choosin’ the pleasant and throwin’ out the disagreeable. But when they git along toward the end of things and look back at the figgerin’ they done, they mostly find that the good they chose wasn’t the good they got, and the bad they chose not to have was the very thing that pestered them. Most folks meets up with about so much good and bad, about so much joy and so much trouble; but the joys hain’t the ones they looked forward to and the troubles hain’t the ones they feared.” Moran smiled and shook his head. “I can’t agree with you, Mrs. Stickney. We get what we plan for. Set your mind on a thing and then plan and wait and work toward it every chance you get. Don’t give it up. Keep your mind on it. Don’t let a chance slip to move nearer to it. What I want—if I want it bad enough—that thing I get.” Suddenly Marie spoke—to Jim. “What’s your opinion, Mr. Ashe?” she said. “I? As old Sir Roger de Coverley said, ‘There’s much to be said on both sides.’” Jim had no desire to be drawn into argument with Moran. Her lip curled. “We used to have a Congressman here who was called Mid-channel Charlie because his attitude toward every question was like yours now. He was never Congressman but once.”