“Oh, yes, I do.  I understand perfectly.  It’s the pure spirit of adventure.  Whenever we do a thing for the sake of the struggle, not for the thing itself, it’s pure adventure, isn’t it?”

“Well, I like money,” he said with the air of being entirely honest.  “I’m not a romantic chap, don’t think that about me.  I care a lot about money, only after I’ve made it, somehow, I never know what to do with it.  All I want for myself is a place to sleep and a bite to eat—­I’m not over-particular what it is—­and clothes to wear, good clothes, too—­but I don’t give a hang for motor cars except to go long distances in when there are no trains running.”

It was the commonplace problem, worked out in intricate detail, of the newly rich, of the uncultivated rich, of the rich whose strenuously active processes of enrichment had permanently closed all other highways to experience.  Seventeen years ago the Gabriella of Hill Street would have had only disdain for the newly rich and their problems; but life, which had softened her judgment and modified her convictions, had completely reversed her inherited opinion of such a case as O’Hara’s.  Though he was as raw as unbaked brick, she was penetrating enough to discern that he was also as genuine; and, so radically had events altered her point of view, that at thirty-seven she found genuine rawness more appealing than superficial refinement.  George had wearied her of the sham and the superficial, of gloss without depth, of manner without substance, of charm without character.

“But there is so much that you might do to help,” she said presently.  “After all, money is power, isn’t it?”

“Misused power too often,” he answered.  “Of course, you can always build lodging-houses and tenements and hospitals; but when you come squarely down to facts, I’ve never in my life tried to help a man by giving him money that I haven’t regretted it.  Why, I’ve ruined men by helping to make their way too easy at the start.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” she admitted; “I don’t know much about it, I confess; but I should have been spared a great deal of suffering if I had had something to start with when I was obliged to make my living.”

“That’s different.”  His voice had grown gentle in an instant.  “I can’t think of your ever having had a hard time.  You seem so strong, so successful, so happy.”

If she had answered straight from her heart, Gabriella would have retorted frankly:  “A good deal of that is in the shape of my face and the way I dress,” but instead of speaking sincerely, she remarked with impersonal cheerfulness:  “Oh, well, happiness, like everything else, is mainly a habit, isn’t it?  I cultivated the habit of happiness at the most miserable time of my life, and I’ve never quite lost it.”

“But I don’t like to think of your ever having worried,” he protested.

Of her ever having worried!  Was he becoming dangerously sentimental or was it merely a random spark of his unquenchable Western chivalry?