"You see," she went on more hurriedly, her voice becoming a little uncertain, her eyes turned steadfastly on the swirls and foaming overfalls the flood now made strongly in the rapids, "I get so infernally lonesome and discouraged sometimes. I'm tired of froth. I don't like the giddy pace most of 'em go. I don't want to be like Laska, soured on everything, so that she lives on cocktails and cigarettes and jazz. If she sits still long enough to think, she's apt to cry. If I don't find myself happy in the jazz age, Rod, at least I belong to it sufficiently not to be afraid or ashamed of my own thoughts and feelings and desires. I'm a normal female person. A woman can't escape the implication of a man, nor vice versa. Most of 'em go it blind. I'm not made that way. I don't know why, but it's a fact. Long ago I made up my mind that if I couldn't find the real thing in my own crowd, I'd go outside, just as you did." "And then," she made a little gesture with her hands, "remember the day Andy showed Mrs. Hector Emmert his medals and made that passionate little speech that she said was sedition? Well, I warmed up to Andy Hall right then and there. Two years. I'm no nearer him now. He holds himself in. He won't let go. What can I do?" "I'll tell you," Rod said impulsively. "Andy doesn't know you. You don't let go yourself." "Fiddlesticks," she retorted. "Two years. I think I'm shamelessly transparent." "Two years? I've known you more than ten," Rod countered. "I've learned more about you in ten minutes than I did in all the time before. So imagine his handicap. You're a rich man's daughter. You've had every social advantage. You belong to a class that taken by and large Andy Hall not only dislikes but despises for its stupidity and arrogance in so far as it deals with working people." "Oh, yes, the well-known capitalist class," Isabel said impatiently. "But you're one and he likes you." "I come in a different category," Rod answered grimly. "I despise the tin-horn capitalist whose only god is capital more than Andy Hall does. It's part of a social theory with Andy. It's a personal feud with me. I'm suffering from the manipulations of that type of gold-digger. It has just about ruined me and has caused me to risk all that several generations of honest, generous-minded men built up, including a home many of us love--and a reputation for integrity besides. But Andy happens to know me as a man apart from my present dubious position as a capitalist. He doesn't really know you as a woman. He may be in love with you. Probably is, because you are an attractive little devil--" "I thank you very much, kind sir," Isabel interrupted mockingly.