e wanted Joan
passionately, almost insanely. But the way in which she made the path
easy for his desire sometimes startled him; he could not make up his
mind whether she was playing some very deep game at his expense or
whether she really loved him to the exclusion of all caution.

It was this problem which he had been more or less trying to solve this
afternoon. At Joan's continued silence he leaned forward and put his
hand over hers where they lay on her lap.

"What are you dreaming of, little girl?" he asked.

The odd flutter which his touch always caused was shaking Joan's heart;
she tried, however, to face him indifferently, summoning up a smile.

"I was thinking," she corrected, "not dreaming."

"Well, the thoughts, then," asked the man, his fingers moved caressingly
up and down her hand, "what were they?"

"I was thinking," began Joan slowly; her eyes fell from his and she
stirred restlessly. "What did you mean just now when you spoke about
drifting together?" she asked.

"Little Miss Pretence," he whispered, "as if you didn't know what I
meant. If I were well off," he said suddenly (perhaps for the moment he
really meant it), "I would make you marry me whether you had new ideas
about it or not."

"Being well off wouldn't have anything to do with it," Joan answered,
"it is more degrading to marry for money than anything else."

"Sometimes I believe you think that we are degrading altogether," the
man said; he watched the colour creep into her face, "God knows we are
not much to boast of, and that is the truth."

Joan struggled with the problem in her mind. "There ought not to be
anything degrading about love," she said finally, and this time it was
his eyes that fell away from hers.

For a little they sat silent, Joan, for some reason known only to
herself, fighting against a strong inclination to cry. Gilbert had taken
away his hands, he sat back in his chair, his feet thrust out, head
down, eyes glooming at the dust. Joan stole a glance at him and felt a
sudden intense admiration for the beauty of his clean-cut profile, his
sleek, well-groomed head. Instinctively she put out a timid hand and
touched him.

"Are you angry with me about something?" she asked.

It may have been that during that pause Gilbert had been forming a good
resolution with all that was best in him to keep from spoiling this
girl's life. Her eyes perhaps had touched on some slumbering chord of
conscience. Her movement though,