No doubt of it: there was a possible splendid woman there! And no doubt of it: he loved that woman utterly! During these days of his ignorance, while Maggie was struggling in the darkness of her unexplored being, Larry drove himself grimly at the business to which under happier circumstances he would have gone under the irresistible suasion of pure joy.

One afternoon he presented to Miss Sherwood an outline for his growing plan for the development of the Sherwood properties on the basis of good homes at fair rentals.

He discovered that, in spite of her generous giving, she had much the same attitude toward Charity as his own: that the only sound Charity, except for those temporarily or permanently handicapped or disabled, was the giving of honest values for honest returns--and that was not Charity at all.
The project of reforming the shiftless character of the Sherwood properties, and of relieving even in a small degree New York's housing congestion, appealed at once to her imagination and her sensible idealism.
"A splendid plan!" she exclaimed, regarding Larry with those wise, humorous eyes of hers, which were now very serious and penetrating.

"You have been working much harder than I had thought.

And if you will pardon my saying it, you have more of the soundly humane vision which big business enterprise should have than I had thought." "Thank you!" said Larry.
"That's a splendid dream," she continued; "but it will take hard work to translate that dream into a reality.