skin of their teeth, were the hardest of all. The girl could not go
back to them; she could not get anything to do in Holland, or
elsewhere--in Heaven's name what could she do?

He asked himself the question with his hands in his pockets and his
eyes on the street. But the answer did not seem forthcoming.

There was no good blinking the matter; the fact was obvious; the girl
was hopelessly and utterly compromised; and he, aided certainly by
untoward circumstances--for the sardonic interference of which, in
such circumstances, a man of sense usually allows--he had done it.
They had had their "holiday," without taking thought for the morrow,
in the way approved by boys and dogs and creatures without experience.
And here was to-morrow, knocking at the door and demanding the
price--as experience showed that it usually did. The question was, who
was going to pay, he or she? She had taken it upon herself as a matter
of course; it seemed natural to her that the burden should be the
woman's, but it did not seem so to him; among his people it was the
man who was expected, and who himself expected, to pay. When he had
grasped the situation fully and saw how she must inevitably stand he
also saw at the same time and equally plainly, that he must marry her;
nothing else was possible.

He walked away from the window and began to search for writing
materials. He could not go and see her, it was out of the question
under the circumstances; he would have to write, and, on the whole,
perhaps, it was easier that way. He sat down to the table, but he did
not at once begin, for between him and the paper there rose up the
vision of a stately old Norfolk house. It was his; he had not lived
there for years, but he supposed he would some day; all his people
had; he remembered his grandfather there and his grandmother--a tall,
stately woman, a woman of parts. He thought of her, and his mother, a
graceful, gracious woman--he thought of her standing in the
drawing-room between the long windows, receiving company. And then he
thought of Julia.

He turned away from the vision abruptly, and dated his letter. But
soon he had lain down his pen again. He was conservative, and Julia
was not of the breed of the women he had recalled; she had no kinship
with them or their modern prototypes, one of whom he vaguely supposed
he should marry some day--when he went to live in the old Norfolk
house. Hers was not a stately or a gracious or an all pervading