nt, but his
persistence brought forth fruit after its kind, and she stubbornly
resolved to neither affirm nor deny. Wherefore she said, a little
stiffly:

"I'm quite willing to listen to anything you wish to say."

"Then I should like to ask if you have counted the cost. Assuming that
this young man's intentions are unmercenary--and I doubt that very
much--it isn't possible that there can be anything in common between
you. The social world in which you move, and that to which he belongs,
are as widely separated as the poles. I do not say yours is the higher
plane, or his the lower--though I may have my own opinion as to
that--but I do say they are vastly different; and the woman who
knowingly marries out of her class has much to answer for. Admitting
that you will do no worse than this, how can you hope to find anything
congenial in a man who has absolutely nothing to say for himself at an
ordinary family dinner-table?"

"I'm not at all sure that Mr. Brockway hadn't anything to say for
himself, though he couldn't be expected to know or care much about the
things we talked of. And it occurred to me at the time that it wasn't
quite kind in us to talk intellectual shop from the soup to the dessert,
as we did."

The President smiled, but the cold eyes belied the outward manifestation
of kindliness. "You may thank me for that, if you choose," he went on,
in the same calm argumentative tone. "I wanted to point a moral, and if
I didn't succeed, it wasn't the fault of the subject. But that is only
the social side; a question of taste. Unfortunately, there is a more
serious matter to be considered. You know the terms of your granduncle's
will; that your Cousin Fleetwell's half of the estate became his
unconditionally on his coming of age, and that your portion is only a
trust until your marriage with your cousin?"

"I ought to know; it's been talked of enough."

"And you know that if the marriage fail by your act, you will lose this
legacy?"

"Yes."

"And that it will go to certain charitable institutions, and so be lost,
not only to you, but to the family?"

"I know all about it."

"You know it, and yet you would deliberately throw yourself away on a
fortune-hunting mechanic--a man whom you have known only since
yesterday? It's incredible!"

"It is you who have said it--not I," she retorted; "but I'm not willing
to admit that it would be all loss and no gain. There would at least be
a brand-new set of sensations