e here all
alone and remembering how things were when we last met. You must
understand! Haven't you ever had a terrible shock or a dreadful
disappointment that seemed to smash up the whole world? And didn't you
find that the only possible thing to do was to work and work and work
as hard as ever you could? When I first came to America, I nearly went
mad. Uncle Chris sent me down to a place on Long Island, and I had
nothing to do all day but think. I couldn't stand it. I ran away and
came to New York and met Nelly Bryant and got this work to do. It
saved me. It kept me busy all day and tired me out and didn't give me
time to think. The harder it is, the better it suits me. It's an
antidote. I simply wouldn't give it up now. As for what you were
saying, I must put up with that. The other girls do, so why shouldn't
I?"

"They are toughened to it."

"Then I must get toughened to it. What else is there for me to do? I
must do something."

"Marry me!" said Wally, reaching across the table and putting his hand
on hers. The light in his eyes lit up his homely face like a lantern.

III

The suddenness of it startled Jill into silence. She snatched her hand
away and drew back, looking at him in wonderment. She was confusedly
aware of a babble of sound--people talking, people laughing, the
orchestra playing a lively tune. All her senses seemed to have become
suddenly more acute. She was intensely alive to small details. Then,
abruptly, the whole world condensed itself into two eyes that were
fastened upon hers--compelling eyes which she felt a panic desire to
avoid.

She turned her head away, and looked out into the restaurant. It
seemed incredible that all these people, placidly intent upon their
food and their small talk, should not be staring at her, wondering
what she was going to say; nudging each other and speculating. Their
detachment made her feel alone and helpless. She was nothing to them
and they did not care what happened to her, just as she had been
nothing to those frozen marshes down at Brookport. She was alone in an
indifferent world, with her own problems to settle for herself.

Other men had asked Jill to marry them--a full dozen of them, here and
there in country houses and at London dances, before she had met and
loved Derek Underhill; but nothing that she had had in the way of
experience had prepared her for Wally. These others had given her time
to marshal her forces, to collect herself, to weigh