day after day? But I don't want
you here to-night! Why can't you see you must leave me alone? Now! This
minute!"

He turned and came over in front of her, and stood looking steadily down.

"I wonder," he said slowly, "how well you understand yourself."

"I think I do," she muttered. With a sudden twitching of her lip she looked
quickly up at him. "Go on, Allan--let's talk it all over now if you must!"

"Not if you feel like that," he said. At his tone of displeasure she caught
his hand.

"Yes, yes, I want to! Please!" she cried. "It's better--really! Believe me,
it is--"

He hesitated a moment, his wide generous mouth set hard, and then in a tone
as sharp as hers he demanded, "Are you sure you'll marry me next spring?
Are you sure you _hope_ you will next spring? Are you sure this sister of
yours in the house, on your nerves day and night, with this blind narrow
motherhood, this motherhood which frightens you--isn't frightening you too
much?"

"No--a little--but not too much." Her deep sweet voice was trembling.
"You're the one who frightens me. If you only knew! When you come like
this--with all you've done for me back of you--"

"Deborah! Don't be a fool!"

"Oh, I know you say you've done nothing, except what you've been glad to
do! You love me like that! But it's just that love! Giving up all your
practice little by little, and your reputation uptown--all for the sake of
me, Allan, me!"

"You're wrong," he replied. "Compared to what I'm getting, I've given up
nothing! Can't you see? You're just as narrow in your school as Edith is
right here in her home! You look upon my hospital as a mere annex to your
schools, when the truth of it is that the work down there is a chance I've
wanted all my life! Can't you understand," he cried, "that instead of your
being in debt to me it's I who am in debt to you? You're a suffragist, eh,
a feminist--whatever you want to call it! All right! So you want to be
equal with man! Then, for God's sake, why not begin? _Feel_ equal! I'm no
annex to you, nor you to me! It has happened, thank God, that our work fits
in--each with the other!"

He stopped and stared, seemed to shake himself; he walked the floor. And
when he turned back his expression had changed.

"Look here, Deborah," he asked, with an appealing humorous smile, "will you
tell me what I'm driving at?"

Deborah threw back her head and laughed, and her laughter thrilled with
relief. "How sure I feel now that I lov