“It’s different, and you know it is,” retorted she. “Custom has made it different. And I’m ugly--and that’s fatal in a woman.” “Charm will beat beauty every time,” said I. “I’ve got no charm--none on the outside. And that’s where a woman’s charm has to be. No, I’ve thought out my case. It’s hopeless. I’m a born old maid. No man ever asked me to marry him. No man ever said a word of love to me. Do you know what that means, Godfrey?” I was silent. A choke in my throat made speech impossible. “Never a word of love,” she went on monotonously. “Yet I don’t suppose any woman ever wanted to hear it more. And no children. Yet I know no woman ever wanted them more. No, not adopted children--but my own flesh and blood. I’ve heard women complain of the burden of bearing a child. It made me wild to listen to them--the fools--the selfish fools! What wouldn’t I have given to have felt a child within me. Does it scandalize you to hear me talk like this?” “No,” said I. “No.” “It’s a wonder,” said she, with a grim smile. She was quieting down, was hiding the heart from which she had on impulse snatched the veil, was ashamed of her outburst. “A woman can talk about having a cancer, or a tumor, or any frightful disease inside her, and nobody’s modesty is shocked. But if she speaks of having a child within her--a wonderful, living human being--a lovely baby--why, it’s immodest!” She gave a scornful laugh. “What a world! What a world!” I looked at her and marveled. What a world, indeed!--where _this_ was one of the sort of relatives of whom pushing arrived people were ashamed! * * * * * I think I forced myself to stay three days with them. I cannot recall; perhaps I left the second day. However that may be, I have the sense of a long, a very long visit. To one who has the city habit the country is oppressively deliberate even when it is interesting. It makes you realize how there is room, and to spare, for sixty minutes in an hour, for sixty seconds in each minute. The city entertains; the country compels you to seek entertainment, to make entertainment. People whose mentality tapers away from mediocrity grow old and dull rapidly in the country as soon as childhood’s torrential life begins to slacken. For men of thought the country ought to be ideal, I should say, once they formed its habit and lost the city habit of waiting in confident expectation of being amused. But for men of action like myself, for men whose whole life is dealing directly with their fellow men, to acquire the country habit is a matter of years, of a complete revolution.