enough to be a good woman and wait
till I set up in the law?"

She let herself play with the idea, to prolong this novel
feeling of content. She asked, "How long will that be?"

"I'll be admitted in two years. I'll soon have a practice. My
father's got influence."

Susan looked at him sadly, slowly shook her head. "Two
years--and then several years more. And I working in a
factory--or behind a counter--from dawn till after dark--poor,
hungry--half-naked--wearing my heart out--wearing my body
away----" She drew away from him, laughed. "I was fooling,
John--about marrying. I liked to hear you say those things. I
couldn't marry you if I would. I'm married already."

"_You_!"

She nodded.

"Tell me about it--won't you?"

She looked at him in astonishment, so amazing seemed the idea
that she could tell anyone that experience. It would be like
voluntarily showing a hideous, repulsive scar or wound, for
sometimes it was scar, and sometimes open wound, and always the
thing that made whatever befell her endurable by comparison.

She did not answer his appeal for her confidence but went on,
"Anyhow, nothing could induce me to go to work again. You don't
realize what work means--the only sort of work I can get to do.
It's--it's selling both body and soul. I prefer----"

He kissed her to stop her from finishing her sentence.
"Don't--please," he pleaded. "You don't understand. In this life
you'll soon grow hard and coarse and lose your beauty and your
health--and become a moral and physical wreck."

She reflected, the grave expression in her eyes--the expression
that gave whoever saw it the feeling of dread as before
impending tragedy. "Yes--I suppose so," she said. "But----
Any sooner than as a working girl living in a dirty hole in a
tenement? No--not so soon. And in this life I've got a chance if
I'm careful of my health and--and don't let things touch _me_. In
that other--there's no chance--none!"

"What chance have you got in this life?"

"I don't know exactly. I'm very ignorant yet. At worst, it's
simply that I've got no chance in either life--and this life is
more comfortable."

"Comfortable! With men you don't like--frightful men----"

"Were you ever cold?" asked Susan.

But it made no impression upon him who had no conception of the
cold that knows not how it is ever to get warm again. He rushed on:

"Lorna, my God!" He caught hold of her and strained her to his
breast. "You