“I was rather overcome; I was about to take a cheap, narrow view of your--your dilemma,” he explained. “I was about to say that your troubles were as common as dirt, and that you were wrong to take them so idealistically, and not to realize the simplest fundamentals, of--. Women are going through a period of readjustment just now, of course. Your troubles probably aren’t much greater than those of any woman, or man, who goes out to hunt a job. You don’t need to smash things, to kick up a row.” She watched, with the penetrating gaze of a Muse, his half-disgusted attempts to be polite. She had not the slightest idea what he was driving at; she merely understood that only his regard for her beauty and womanhood kept him from saying wild, irrational things. It occurred to her that he might be mentally unbalanced; geniuses often were. “Look here,” he continued, growing increasingly excited under her look of beautiful, understanding aloofness, “wouldn’t it be a good thing if you decided, before beginning to live your own life, just what sort of life your own life is--what you want to make of it? You’re breaking away from a beastly artificial environment; aren’t you afraid you’ll have as hard a time as, say, a pet canary turned out to make a living among the sparrows? Besides, canaries are quite as useful as sparrows.” “I hardly think,” she said with great determination, “that I can be compared to a pet canary; and I’ll have to ask you to be more considerate in referring to my husband. He may not understand me, but he is kind, and as good as he knows--” “Excuse me,” interrupted Hallton, putting his hand to his forehead; “but I have no recollection of referring to your husband at all.” “You spoke of my breaking away from him,” she said, “and you called him a beastly artificial--I won’t repeat what you said.” The delicate curves of her cheeks warmed with the memory of the unfamiliar appellation, with faint doubt as to her first idea of its value. “However, that’s neither here nor there. I wish to ask you a simple, straightforward question, Mr. Hallton: do you, or do you not, think it is right for persons to live their own lives?” For a moment she thought she had succeeded in bringing him back to a humble consideration of her case; he looked at her with something like consternation in his face, his alert, gray eyes blinking rapidly. Light from the window made her massed hair a soft, golden glimmer above the sweet, injured, girlish seriousness of her face; her lips softened, curved downward, like a troubled child’s. But Hallton turned from her to look out of the window.