"
"I have not a fault to find with the country which produced you!"
Rowland thought he might risk this, smiling.
"And yet you want me to change--to assimilate Europe, I suppose you
would call it."
"I have felt that desire only on general principles. Shall I tell you
what I feel now? America has made you thus far; let America finish you!
I should like to ship you back without delay and see what becomes
of you. That sounds unkind, and I admit there is a cold intellectual
curiosity in it."
She shook her head. "The charm is broken; the thread is snapped! I
prefer to remain here."
Invariably, when he was inclined to make of something they were talking
of a direct application to herself, she wholly failed to assist him; she
made no response. Whereupon, once, with a spark of ardent irritation, he
told her she was very "secretive." At this she colored a little, and
he said that in default of any larger confidence it would at least be
a satisfaction to make her confess to that charge. But even this
satisfaction she denied him, and his only revenge was in making, two
or three times afterward, a softly ironical allusion to her slyness.
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