"You imply that she is not fastidious, and will be lenient to her
husband's faults? That she will bring him down to her level?"

"Well," said Festing, who thought Helen did not know Charnock's
dissipated habits, "I imagine she'll keep him there, and that's
something. I mean she won't let him sink below her level; Sadie's shrewd
and determined. Then marriage is a problem to men like Bob farming the
plains. Girls of the type they have been used to and would naturally
choose couldn't stand the hardships."

"So they are satisfied with a lower type? With any girl who pleases
their eye?"

"I don't think that's quite fair," Festing objected. "Besides, lower is
rather vague."

"Then would you, for example, be satisfied with a girl like Miss
Keller?"

"Certainly not," said Festing, with incautious firmness. "Anyway, not
now I've seen a different kind in the Old Country."

Helen turned her head and said nothing for a few moments. Then she got
up.

"I think you have had a difficult task, Mr. Festing, and I must thank
you for the way you have carried it out. We won't speak of it again; but
perhaps if Muriel Gardiner----"