“Well, I will say it. Not that it is really my business, but because in a way it is begging your pardon, and I ought to do that. You see, I had begun to believe that you were--that you were--well, that you were not very--very active, you know.” “Active? Say, look here, Helen! What--” “Oh, I don't wonder you don't understand. I mean that you were rather--rather fond of not doing much--of--of--” “Eh? Not doing much? That I was lazy, do you mean?” “Why, not exactly lazy, perhaps, but--but--Oh, how CAN I say just what I mean! I mean that you were always saying that you didn't like the work in your grandfather's office.” “Which I don't.” “And that some day you were going to do something else.” “Which I am.” “Write or act or do something--” “Yes, and that's true, too.” “But you don't, you know. You don't do anything. You've been talking that way ever since I knew you, calling this a one-horse town and saying how you hated it, and that you weren't going to waste your life here, and all that, but you keep staying here and doing just the same things. The last long talk we had together you told me you knew you could write poems and plays and all sorts of things, you just felt that you could. You were going to begin right away. You said that some months ago, and you haven't done any writing at all. Now, have you?” “No-o. No, but that doesn't mean I shan't by and by.” “But you didn't begin as you said you would. That was last spring, more than a year ago, and I don't believe you have tried to write a single poem. Have you?” He was beginning to be ruffled. It was quite unusual for any one, most of all for a girl, to talk to him in this way. “I don't know that I have,” he said loftily. “And, anyway, I don't see that it is--is--” “My business whether you have or not. I know it isn't. I'm sorry I spoke. But, you see, I--Oh, well, never mind. And I do want you to know how much I appreciate your helping me as you did just now. I don't know how to thank you for that.” But thanks were not exactly what he wanted at that moment. “Go ahead and say the rest,” he ordered, after a short pause. “You've said so much that you had better finish it, seems to me. I'm lazy, you think. What else am I?” “You're brave, awfully brave, and you are so strong and quick--yes, and--and--masterful; I think that is the right word. You ordered me about as if I were a little girl. I didn't want to keep still, as you told me to; I wanted to scream. And I wanted to faint, too, but you wouldn't let me. I had never seen you that way before. I didn't know you could be like that. That is what surprises me so. That is why I said you were so different.” Here was balm for wounded pride. Albert's chin lifted. “Oh, that was nothing,” he said. “Whatever had to be done must be done right off, I could see that. You couldn't hang on where you were very long.”