"So you consider me a paroquet?"

"In comparison with Laura Wilde."

"Well, I'd have said a canary," she remarked indulgently, "but we'll let
it pass. I don't see though," she serenely continued, "why a paroquet
shouldn't have a feeling for a thrush?"

He shook his head, smiling. "It seems a bit odd, that's all."

"Then, if it's any interest to you to know it," pursued Gerty, with a
burst of confidence, "I'd walk across Brooklyn Bridge, every step of the
way, on my knees for Laura. That's because I believe in her," she wound
up emphatically, "and because, too, I don't happen to believe much in
anybody else."

"So you know her well?"

"I went to school with her and I adored her then, but I adore her even
more to-day. Somehow she always seems to be knocking for the good in
one, and it has to come out at last because she stands so patiently and
waits. She makes me over every time she meets me, shapes me after some
ideal image of me she has in her brain, and then I'm filled with
desperate shame if I don't seem at least a little bit to correspond with
it."

"I understand," said Trent slowly; "one feels her as one feels a strong
wind on a high mountain. There's a wonderful bigness about her."