after, dinner coffee and
cigarettes. He was a man who took great pains with his clothes, and
got them where pains was not in vain. That evening he had arrayed
himself with unusual care, and the result was a fine, manly figure of
the well-bred New-Yorker type. Certainly Stanley had ground for his
feeling that he deserved and got liking for himself. The three sat in
the library for perhaps half an hour, then Mrs. Brindley rose to leave
the other two alone. Mildred urged her to stay--Mildred who had been
impatient of her presence when Stanley was announced. Urged her to
stay in such a tone that Cyrilla could not persist, but had to sit down
again. As the three talked on and on, Mildred continued to picture life
with Stanley--continued the vivid picturing she had begun within ten
minutes of Stanley's entering, the picturing that had caused her to
insist on Cyrilla's remaining as chaperon. A young girl can do no such
picturing as Mildred could not avoid doing. To the young girl married
life, its tete-a-tetes, its intimacies, its routine, are all a blank.
Any attempt she makes to fill in details goes far astray. But Mildred,
with Stanley there before her, could see her life as it would be.

Toward half-past ten, Stanley said, shame-faced and pleading, "Mildred,
I should like to see you alone for just a minute before I go."

Mildred said to Cyrilla: "No, don't move. We'll go into the
drawing-room."

He followed her there, and when the sound of Mrs. Brindley's step in
the hall had died away, he began: "I think I understand you a little
now. I shan't insult you by returning or destroying that note or the
check. I accept your decision--unless you wish to change it." He
looked at her with eager appeal. His heart was trembling, was sick
with apprehension, with the sense of weakness, of danger and gloom
ahead. "Why shouldn't I help you, at least, Mildred?" he urged.

Whence the courage came she knew not, but through her choking throat
she forced a positive, "No."

"And," he went on, "I meant what I said. I love you. I'm wretched
without you. I want you to marry me, career or no career."

Her fears were clamorous, but she forced herself to say, "I can't
change."

"I hoped--a little--that you sent me the note to-day because you-- You
didn't?"

"No," said Mildred. "I want us to be friends. But you must keep away."

He bent his head. "Then I'll go 'way off somewhere. I can't bear being
here in New York a