passionate vehemence.

"Why, I'm sure I don't know!" said the Youngish Girl a trifle coldly.
"Why--it would take me quite a long time--to decide just how--nice he
was. But--" with a quick softening of her voice--"but he certainly
makes one think of--nice things--Blue Mountains, and Green Forests,
and Brown Pine Needles, and a Long, Hard Trail, shoulder to
shoulder--with a chance to warm one's heart at last at a
hearth-fire--bigger than a sunset!"

Altogether unconsciously her small hands went gripping out to the edge
of her seat, as though just a grip on plush could hold her
imagination back from soaring into a miraculous, unfamiliar world
where women did not idle all day long on carpets waiting for men who
came on--pavements.

"Oh, my God!" she cried out with sudden passion. "I wish I could have
lived just one day when the world was new. I wish--I wish I could have
reaped just one single, solitary, big Emotion before the world had
caught it and--appraised it--and taxed it--and licensed it--and
_staled_ it!"

"Oh-ho!" said the Traveling Salesman with a little sharp indrawing of
his breath. "Oh-ho!--So that's what the--Young Electrician makes you
think of, is it?"

For just an instant the Traveling Salesman thought that the Youngish
Girl was going to strike him.

"I wasn't thinking of the Young Electrician at all!" she asserted