It made a difference that this attractive young student had
spoken bravely on the wrong side; but if he had thought much about it
he would have made himself surer and surer that only time was needed
to show her the mistake. If he had gone deeper into the subject he
would have said that he thought it all nonsense about women's having
the worst of it in life; he had known more than one good fellow who
had begun to go down hill from the day he was married, and if girls
would only take the trouble to fit themselves for their indoor
business the world would be a vastly more comfortable place. And as
for their tinkering at the laws, such projects should be bitterly
resented.
It only needed a few days to make it plain to this good fellow that
the coming of one of the summer guests had made a great difference in
his life. It was easy to find a hundred excuses for going to Miss
Prince's, who smiled benignantly upon his evident interest in the fair
stranger within her gates. The truth must be confessed, however, that
the episode of the lamed shoulder at the picnic party had given Mr.
George Gerry great unhappiness. There was something so high and
serene in Anna Prince's simplicity and directness, and in the way in
which she had proved herself adequate to so unusual an occasion, that
he could not help mingling a good deal of admiration with his
dissatisfaction. It is in human nature to respect power; but all his
manliness was at stake, and his natural rights would be degraded and
lost, if he could not show his power to be greater than her own.
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