The old man smiled cynically. “Have you tried?” he inquired. “If I had tried and failed, she would have been on the alert for an indirect attempt.” “Try her, young man,” said he, laughing. “In this day there are few people anywhere who'd refuse any sum from anybody for anything. And a woman--and a New York woman--and a New York fashionable woman--and a daughter of old Ellersly--she'll take it as a baby takes the breast.” “She would not take it,” said I. My tone, though I strove to keep angry protest out of it, because I needed him, caused him to draw back instantly. “I beg your pardon,” said he. “I forgot for the moment that I was talking to a man young enough still to have youth's delusions about women. You'll learn that they're human, that it's from them we men inherit our weaknesses. However, let's assume that she won't take it: _Why_ won't she take your money? What is there about it that repels Ellersly's daughter, brought up in the sewers of fashionable New York--the sewers, sir!” “She does not love me,” I answered. “I have hurt you,” he said quickly, in great distress at having compelled me to expose my secret wound. “The wound does not ache the worse,” said I, “for my showing it--to _you_.” And that was the truth. I looked over toward Dawn Hill whose towers could just be seen. “We live there.” I pointed. “She is--like a guest in my house.” When I glanced at him again, his face betrayed a feeling of which I doubt if any one had thought him capable in many a year. “I see that you love her,” he said, gently as a mother. “Yes,” I replied. And presently I went on: “The idea of any one I love being dependent on me in a sordid way is most distasteful to me. And since she does not love me, does not even like me, it is doubly necessary that she be independent.” “I confess I do not quite follow you” said he. “How can she accept anything from me? If she should finally be compelled by necessity to do it, what hope could I have of her ever feeling toward me as a wife should feel toward her husband?” At this explanation of mine his eyes sparkled with anger--and I could not but suspect that he had at one time in his life been faced with a problem like mine, and had settled it the other way. My suspicion was not weakened when he went on to say: “Boyish motives again! They show you do not know women. Don't be deceived by their delicate exterior, by their pretenses of super-refinement. They affect to be what passion deludes us into thinking them. But they're clay, sir, just clay, and far less sensitive than we men. Don't you see, young man, that by making her independent you're throwing away your best chance of winning her? Women are like dogs--like dogs, sir! They lick the hand that feeds 'em--lick it, and like it.” “Possibly,” said I, with no disposition to combat views based on I knew not what painful experience. “But I don't care for that sort of liking--from a woman, or from a dog.”