"And don't I know it?" challenged Kitty. "You seem to forget that I was
born here--that I have lived here almost as many years as you."

"But just the same you don't know," returned Phil gently. "You see,
dear, you knew it as a girl, the same as I did when I was a boy. But
now--well, I know it as a man, and you as a woman know something that
you think is very different."

Again that long silence lay a barrier between them. Then Kitty made the
effort, hesitatingly. "Do you love the life so very, very much, Phil?"

He answered quickly. "Yes, but I could love any life that suited you."

"No--no," she returned hurriedly, "that's not--I mean--Phil, why are you
so satisfied here? There is so little for a man like you."

"So little!" His voice told her that her words had stung. "I told you
that you did not know. Why, everything that a man has a right to want is
here. All that life can give anywhere is here--I mean all of life that
is worth having. But I suppose," he finished lamely, "that it's hard for
you to see it that way--now. It's like trying to make a city man
understand why a fellow is never lonesome just because there's no crowd
around. I guess I love this life and am satisfied with it just as the
wild horses over there at the foot of old Granite love it and are
satisfied."

"But don't you feel, sometimes, that if you had greater
opportunities--don't you sometimes wish that you could live where--" She
paused at a loss for words. Phil somehow always made the things she
craved seem so trivial.