"
"It's true it was an odd way, but I did think she was trying to
attract me. Forgive my depravity."
"You're very conceited. She had no interested views, and never
supposed you would think she had."
"One must be very modest then to talk with such women," Ralph said
humbly. "But it's a very strange type. She's too personal- considering
that she expects other people not to be. She walks in without knocking
at the door."
"Yes," Isabel admitted, "she doesn't sufficiently recognize the
existence of knockers; and indeed I'm not sure that she doesn't
think them rather a pretentious ornament. She thinks one's door should
stand ajar. But I persist in liking her."
"I persist in thinking her too familiar," Ralph rejoined,
naturally somewhat uncomfortable under the sense of having been doubly
deceived in Miss Stackpole.
"Well," said Isabel, smiling, "I'm afraid it's because she's
rather vulgar that I like her."
"She would be flattered by your reason!"
"If I should tell her I wouldn't express it in that way. I should
say it's because there's something of the 'people' in her."
"What do you know about the people? and what does she, for that
matter?"
"She knows a great deal, and I know enough to feel that she's a kind
of emanation of the great democracy- of the continent, the country,
the nation.
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