“Worse—to please him? What do you mean?” asked Gertrude, stopping.

Mr. Brand stopped also, and with the same soft straight-forwardness, “He doesn’t care for the things you care for—the great questions of life.”

Gertrude, with her eyes on his, shook her head. “I don’t care for the great questions of life. They are much beyond me.”

“There was a time when you didn’t say that,” said Mr. Brand.

“Oh,” rejoined Gertrude, “I think you made me talk a great deal of nonsense. And it depends,” she added, “upon what you call the great questions of life. There are some things I care for.”

“Are they the things you talk about with your cousin?”

“You should not say things to me against my cousin, Mr. Brand,” said Gertrude. “That is dishonorable.”

He listened to this respectfully; then he answered, with a little vibration of the voice, “I should be very sorry to do anything dishonorable. But I don’t see why it is dishonorable to say that your cousin is frivolous.”

“Go and say it to himself!”

“I think he would admit it,” said Mr. Brand. “That is the tone he would take. He would not be ashamed of it.”

“Then I am not ashamed of it!” Gertrude declared. “That is probably what I like him for. I am frivolous myself.”

“You are trying, as I said just now, to lower yourself.”

“I am trying for once to be natural!” cried Gertrude passionately. “I have been pretending, all my life; I have been dishonest; it is you that have made me so!” Mr. Brand stood gazing at her, and she went on, “Why shouldn’t I be frivolous, if I want? One has a right to be frivolous, if it’s one’s nature. No, I don’t care for the great questions. I care for pleasure—for amusement. Perhaps I am fond of wicked things; it is very possible!”

Mr. Brand remained staring; he was even a little pale, as if he had been frightened. “I don’t think you know what you are saying!” he exclaimed.

“Perhaps not. Perhaps I am talking nonsense. But it is only with you that I talk nonsense. I never do so with my cousin.”

“I will speak to you again, when you are less excited,” said Mr. Brand.

“I 

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