The girl's color deepened almost imperceptibly. "You're right," she
said. "There's a standard of breeding that we up-to-date people don't
attain. But I'm at least intelligent enough to recognize it. You reckon
her as a friend, don't you?"

"Why, yes; I suppose so."

"Do you suppose you'd ever come to reckon me as one?" she asked, half
bantering, half wistful.

"There won't be time. You're running away."

"Perhaps I might write you. I think I'd like to."

"Would you?" he murmured. "Why?"

"You ought to be greatly flattered," she reproved him. "Instead you
shoot a 'why' at me. Well; because you've got something I haven't got.
And when I find anything new like that, I always try to get some of it
for myself."

"I don't know what it could be, but--"

"Call it your philosophy of life. Your contentment. Or is it only
detachment? That can't last, you know."

He turned to her, vaguely disturbed as by a threat. "Why not?"

"You're too--well, distinctive. You're too rare and beautiful a