"You are a man," replied Mrs. Denison, a little impatiently; "and,
from the beginning, man has not been able to comprehend woman! If
you wait for a woman worth having to tell you, even with her eyes,
that she likes you, and this before you have given a sign, you will
wait until the day of doom. A true woman holds herself at a higher
price!"

There was silence between the parties for the space of nearly a
minute. Then Paul Hendrickson said--

"Few women can resist the attraction of gold. Creatures of
taste--lovers of the beautiful--fond of dress, equipage, elegance--I
do not wonder that we who have little beyond ourselves to offer
them, find simple manhood light in the balance."

And he sighed heavily.

"It is because true men are not true to themselves and the true
women Heaven wills to cross their paths in spring-time, that so many
of them fail to secure the best for life-companions!" answered Mrs.
Denison. "Worth is too retiring or too proud. Either diffidence or
self-esteem holds it back in shadow. I confess myself to be sorely
puzzled at times with the phenomenon. Why should the real man shrink
away, and let the meretricious fop and the man 'made of money' win
the beautiful and the best? Women are not such fools as to prefer
tinsel to gold--the outside making up to the inner manhood! Neither
are they so dim-sighted that they cannot perceive who is the man and
who the 'fellow.' My word for it, if Miss Loring's mind was known,
you have a higher place therein than Dexter."