now."

"Don't worry, old dear," smiled Carlotta. "I don't care a snap of my
fingers for any of the poor worms, though I wouldn't needlessly set
foot on 'em. As for justifications I have a whole bag of them up my
sleeve ready to spill out like a pack of cards when the time comes. You
don't have to concern yourself in the least about them. Your business
is to propose. 'Come, woo me, woo, me, for now I am in a holiday humor
and like enough to consent'"--she quoted Tony's lines and, leaning
toward him, lifted her flower face close to his. "Shall I count ten?"
she teased.

"Carlotta, have mercy. You are driving me crazy. Pretty thing it would be
for me to propose to you before I even got my sheepskin. Jolly pleased
your father would be, wouldn't he, to be presented with a jobless,
penniless son-in-law?"

"Nonsense!" said Carlotta crisply. "It wouldn't matter if you didn't even
have a fig leaf. You wouldn't be either jobless or penniless if you were
his son-in-law. He has pennies enough for all of us and enough jobs for
you, which is quite sufficient unto the day. Don't be stiff and silly,
Phil. And don't set your jaw like that. I hate men who set their jaws. It
isn't at all becoming. I don't say my dear misguided Daddy wouldn't raise
a merry little row just at first. He often raises merry little rows over
things I want to do, but in the end he always comes round to my way of
thinking and wants precisely what I want. Everything will be smooth as
silk, I promise you. I know what I am talking about. I've thought it out
very carefully. I don't make up my mind in a hurry, but when I do decide
what I want I take it."

"You can't take this," said Philip Lambert.

Carlotta drew back and stared, her violet eyes very wide open. Never in
all her twenty two years had any man said "can't" to her in that tone.
It was a totally new experience. For a moment she was too astounded even
to be angry.

"What do you mean?" she asked a little limply.

"I mean I won't take your father's pennies nor hold down a pseudo-job
I'm not fitted for, even for the sake of being his son-in-law. And I
won't marry you until I am able to support you on the kind of job I am
fitted for."

"And may I inquire what that is?" demanded Carlotta sharply, recovering
sufficiently to let the thorns she usually kept gracefully concealed
prick out from among the roses.

Phil laughed shortly.

"Don't faint, Carlotta. I am eminently fitted to be a village
store-ke