"I asked you because I didn't know," he answered. "It seemed to me you couldn't have much time for things of that sort. You generally seem to be pretty busy with one thing and another. I don't know much about fashionable life and fashionable women. The women I knew when I was a boy--my own mother and her sisters--spent the most of their time with their children; and it wasn't such a bad way either. They were pretty good women." "Perhaps it was the best way," said Bertha, "and I dare say they were better for it. I dare say we compare very unfavorably with them." "You don't compare at all," he returned. "I should not compare you. I don't know how it would work with you. They got old pretty soon, and lost their good looks; but they were safe, kind-hearted creatures, who tried to do their duty and make the best of things. I don't say they were altogether right in their views of life; they were narrow, I suppose, and ran into extremes, but they had ways a man likes to think of, and did very little mischief." "I could scarcely estimate the amount of mischief I do," said Bertha, applying herself to her work cheerfully; "but I do not think my children are neglected. Colonel Tredennis would probably give a certificate to that effect. They are clothed quite warmly, and are occasionally allowed a meal, and I make a practice of recognizing them when I meet them on the street." She was wondering if it would not be better to reserve the letter until some more auspicious occasion. It struck her that in the course of his day's fatigues he had encountered some problem of which he found it difficult to rid himself. There were signs of it in his manner. He wore a perturbed, preoccupied expression, and looked graver than she had ever seen him. He sat with his hands in his pockets, his hair on end, his bluff countenance a rather deeper color than usual, and his eyes resting upon her. "This isn't an easy world," he said, "and I suppose it is no easier for women than for men. I shouldn't like to be a woman myself, and have to follow my leader, and live in one groove from beginning to end. It is natural that some should feel the temptation to try to get out of it, and use their power as men use theirs; but it does not pay--it can't. Women were meant to be good--to be good and honest and true, and--and innocent." It was an amazingly ingenuous creed, and he presented it with a rough simplicity and awkwardness which might have been laughable but for their heavy sincerity. Bertha felt this seriousness instantaneously, and, looking up, saw in his sharp little eyes a suggestion of feeling which startled her. "Wondering what I'm thinking of?" he said. "Well, I am thinking of you. I've thought of you pretty often lately, and to-night I've a reason for having you in my mind." "What is the reason?" she asked, more startled than before. He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets; there was no mistaking the evidences of strong emotion in his face.