"I think he is an out and out Yankee. Clever enough in some directions, rather whimsical, deadly afraid you will find out what he is thinking about, frightfully cautious of showing his feelings, with a conscience which worries him because his inclination isn't always to follow it exactly, wherein he differs from another who follows his impulses, and whose impulses are always generous ones. Your Mr. Jeffreys sits down and pros and cons for hours. Someone, whose name we don't mention, plunges out, impelled by an unselfish motive, and does the thing that the other deliberates over. Yet I won't say the cousin doesn't do fine honorable things once he makes up his mind it is right. Very likely he rises to his heights by a different process, and doesn't ever make the mistake of over zeal, of going at too brisk a pace like the unmentioned sometimes does. What the latter does is with his whole heart. I think he might almost perjure himself for one he loved; I know he would cheerfully die in the same cause." Linda, leaning with elbows on table, thoughtfully tapped one hand with an ivory paper-cutter. "You are analytical, Aunt Ri, but probably you are right. Yet, after all if a man, through evolutions of reasoning, reaches a point where his conscience bids him do a noble deed, isn't he just as much to be approved as he who rushes out, never asking for reasons, and does a like noble thing? And isn't he more to be approved than the man who sacrifices his integrity, or does a wrong thing for love's sake?" "Oh, yes, I don't doubt it though it depends largely upon one's view of the case. For my part I admire the spontaneous, intrepid man more than the deliberate one, but that is a matter of preference." "Which do you think would be the easier to live with?" Linda balanced the paper-cutter on the tips of her fingers. "Wouldn't the impetuous man be more difficult, more trying, for the very reason of his impetuosity?" "Yes, but he'd be vastly more entertaining, to my mind, because of his uncertainty." "In perjuring himself, for example?" "Oh, we needn't go so far as that, Verlinda. A really good man would never go so far unless--" "Unless?" "He felt the cause for which he criminated himself was a greater thing than his own state of well-being. I can imagine certain men who would sacrifice their immortal welfare for the sake of a sacred cause." "And you think Berkley Matthews is like that?" "No, I don't say so? I won't go so far in my estimate of him, though I do say there are few things he wouldn't do for one he loved. But you remember we were not to mention him." "We don't appear to be doing much else. We are comparing him all the time with Mr. Jeffreys whether we mention his name or not. I agree with you in thinking Berk is capable of fine things, but so I believe is Mr. Jeffreys."