"I like to think that there is one soul uncontaminated by the sense of money in this big, brutal, sordid city." "You mean two," said Alma, with modesty.

"But if you stifle at the Dryfooses', why do you go there ?" "Why do I go ?" he mused.

"Don't you believe in knowing all the natures, the types, you can?
Those girls are a strange study: the young one is a simple, earthly creature, as common as an oat-field and the other a sort of sylvan life: fierce, flashing, feline--" Alma burst out into a laugh.

"What apt alliteration! And do they like being studied?
I should think the sylvan life might--scratch." "No," said Beaton, with melancholy absence, "it only-purrs." The girl felt a rising indignation.

"Well, then, Mr.Beaton, I should hope it would scratch, and bite, too.