"You mean--that you let a--a woman like that come in
your house and stay a week? Mean--"
For a long time we sat by the fire in Kitty's sitting-room with its
rose-colored hangings, its mellow furnishings, its soft burning logs on
their brass andirons, its elusive fragrance of fresh flowers, and
unsparingly I told her what all women should know. In the twilight
that of which I talked made pictures come and go that gave her
understanding never glimpsed before, and, slipping on her knees, she
buried her face, shudderingly, in my lap.
"Is it I, Danny? Is it women like me who could do something and
don't?" she said, after a long, long while. "Oh, Danny, is it I?"
[Illustration: "Is it I, Danny? Is it women like me who could do
something and don't?"]
"It is all of us." My fingers smoothed the beautiful brown hair.
"Every woman of to-day who thinks there's a halo on her head ought to
take it off and look at it. She wouldn't see much. We like halos. We
imagine we deserve them. And we like the pretty speeches which have
spoiled us. What we need is plain truth, Kitty.
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