cleverness in men--but, all the same, it is hard for a man to make money
until he has worked for many, many years. I could not wait for you. I am
older than you, and everybody is wondering why, with all my
opportunities, I have not married. You'd much better give me up," she
added, looking into my face steadily and smiling, although her lip
trembled, "and let Mr. Talbot have me. He is rich, and can marry me at
once. He is waiting for my answer now, and it is best that I should, as
you say, end it all."

I shuddered as this pang disturbed my warm bliss. "For Heaven's sake,
don't joke, Georgy!" I exclaimed. "I can't even hear you allude to the
possibility of marrying such a man as that with equanimity. I am not so
poor. Mr. Floyd--" But, after all, I could not tell her of Mr. Floyd's
generosity to me: it seemed like basing calculations upon his death to
assure her that the course of events was to bring me a fortune.

She looked at me with eagerness. "Tell me now," she said, putting her
hand upon my arm. "If you love me, Floyd, you cannot keep a secret from
me."

To describe the beauty of her face, the fascination of her manner, the
thrill of her touch, words are quite powerless, mere pen-scratches. If
any man could have withstood her, I was not that man. Shame to relate, I
soon had told her everything--that Mr. Floyd had for years placed an
ample income at my disposal--that I had seen his will, which gave me,
without restriction, a clear third of his fortune.

She was meditative for a while. "But," she said then with a trifle of
brusqueness, "if you marry me he will be angry and change all that: he
does not like me. He has different plans for you: he wants you to marry
Helen."

"Don't say that," I cried, "for I love Mr. Floyd so well, I owe him so
much, I could refuse him nothing."

"You mean that if he asked you to marry Helen you would give me up,
would take her?" she retorted with a flaming color on her cheeks and a
gleam in her eyes. "You do not care for me, then. You are merely
playing with me: you love her, after all."

"Now, that is nonsense, Georgy," I said gently, for through her jealousy
I had the first glimpse, I fancied, of something like real love for me;
"and I do not like to hear Helen's name bandied about in this way. You
may be sure that she will stand in no need of suitors: I shall never be
one of them. Now, then, who is it that is coquetting? You know whom I
love--what I want. I am very much in