"I don't know that I ought to tell you that; and yet I might as well. It's
just this: they're not very well off--so I can help. Naturally I like
that."

"You can help by footing the bills. That's all very fine if you enjoy it,
but everybody wouldn't."

"They would if they were in my position," she insisted. "When you can help
in any way it gives you a sense of being of use to some one. I'd rather
that people needed me, even if they didn't want me, than that they
shouldn't need me at all."

"They need your money," he declared, with a young man's outspokenness.
"That's what."

"But that's something, isn't it? When you've no place in the world you're
glad enough to get one, even if you have to buy it. My guardian and his
wife mayn't care much to have me, but it's some satisfaction to know that
they'd get along much worse if I weren't here."

"So should I," he laughed. "What I'm to do when I'm turned adrift without
you, Heaven only knows. It's curious--the effect imprisonment has on you.
It takes away your self-reliance. It gives you a helpless feeling, like a
baby. You want to be free--and yet you're almost afraid of the open air."

He was so much at home with her now that, sitting carelessly astride of
his chair, with his arms folded on the back, he felt a fraternal element
in their mutual relation. She bent more closely over her work, and spoke
without looking up.