"I shall never change, Dick. It was no interest in you that made me send for you. It was interest in the well-being of another woman." "Oh, another woman! And who, pray, may she be?"--frigidly, face darkening. "Can't you guess? Have there been so many out here?" "You know there's only one woman for me," he said bitterly, "and she drove me off like a thief and has called me back as though I were a thief!" "Perhaps you are." "What do you mean by that?" There was that about him which made her think of a man cornered. "I have called you here because I have reason to believe that you are trying to steal the heart of a young girl--of Bobby Cole." He laughed unpleasantly, but there was in the laugh a queer relief, as though he had anticipated other things. "Now who's been tattling to you?" "My men have seen you come and go, they have seen you with the girl. One of them came to me and begged that I send for you and try to talk you out of this. They know, Dick. These men understand men ... like you." "Because they see me with her and because I'm not considered fit by you to stay beneath your roof, even when it is night and storming, they think I'm damned beyond hope, do they? They think I'm menacing her happiness, do they?" "But aren't you?" she countered. "I know her. I have talked to her and watched her. Dick, she is a lonely, pathetic little creature with the world against her. There have been just two things left in her life: her own splendid self respect and her devotion to her father. Why, she hasn't even had the respect of the people about her! "And now she is facing loss of the biggest thing she possesses: the loss of her belief in herself, for you will destroy that just as surely as you force her to listen to your ... to what I suppose you still call your love-making." He eyed her a moment before saying: "You used, at least, to be fair, Jane; you used to go slowly in judging people and their motives and usually you were more or less right. Have you put all that behind you? Does the fact that a man is charged with some irregularity convince you of his guilt now?" "Why no. But knowing you and knowing her..." "Don't you think it possible for a man, even, for the sake of the argument, a blackguard like me,"--bowing slightly--"to change a trifle?" He put the question with so much confidence, with so much of his old certainty that it checked Jane. "Why, we all may change," she said slowly. "I am glad you will grant that much,"--ironically. "Think back, just a few weeks, and you may recall one somewhat theatrical statement you made to me about finding yourself among these people. I thought it preposterous then but I have lived and learned; I know now that you could mean what you said then.... Jane, I, too, have found my people ... at least my woman." She stared hard at him. "Do you mean that, Dick Hilton?"--very lowly. "As much as I have ever meant anything in my life!"