"I do not know Mr. Patches," she answered.

"You met him to-day; and you know what I mean. Would it make any
difference if I were like him?"

"Why, Phil, dear, how can I answer such a question? I do not know."

"Then it's not because I belong here in this country instead of back
East in some city that has made you change?"

"I have changed, I suppose, because I have become a woman, Phil, as you
have become a man."

"Yes, I have become a man," he returned, "but I have not changed, except
that the boy's love has become a man's love. Would it make any
difference, Kitty, if you cared more for the life here--I mean if you
were contented here--if these things that mean so much to us all,
satisfied you?"

Again she answered, "I do not know, Phil. How can I know?"

"Will you try, Kitty--I mean try to like your old home as you used to
like it?"

"Oh, Phil, I have tried. I do try," she cried. "But I don't think it's
the life that I like or do not like that makes the difference. I am
sure, Phil, that if I could"--she hesitated, then went on bravely--"if I
could give you the love you want, nothing else would matter. You said
you could like any life that suited me. Don't you think that I could be
satisfied with any life that suited the man I loved?"