ill further from him, and was looking out of the
window as if half distracted by her own thought.

"Why," he blurted, "you'd be as unhappy without paint as I'd be without
work. Rather than have you give it up, I'd--I'd send you down to
Maryland to my mother. Why not do that? You'd love her, because everyone
does. And she'd love you because--well--just because she couldn't help
it. Mary--if you'd only go down there you could have a home--no fussy
hotel, and--and--I'd be so happy to----"

She suddenly turned toward him with a tiny gesture, then laughed. He was
rather hurt, and felt that possibly she was ridiculing his honest and
generous offer. As if she read his thought she came quickly toward him
and held out her hand and caught his and said, using the old jocular
name, "No, Bill Jones, Pirate, it isn't money! But don't think for an
instant that I don't appreciate the offer that comes from your big, fine
heart! I do! And--I wish I could accept it. I think I know what your
home is like--and what your mother is like."

She dropped his hand and now turned toward the easel, smudged a blotch
of paint with a slender finger tip in awkward pretense at being
interested in her study, and without looking at him said, "It's not
money. It's because the man to whom I am engaged to be married
disapproves of my little hobby and has asserted so in most emphatic
terms."

It seemed to Jim that the whole room was reeling, and that there was a
great burst of sound, followed by a stillness so profound that the
distressed beating of his heart had become loudly audible. His knees
trembled. His hands clutched and quivered. He felt mentally and
physically stricken, tried to speak, could utter no sound, and then, to
conceal his hurt, turned almost mechanically to the chair she had
proffered, groped blindly for its arm, and slowly subsided into it. He
was pitifully thankful that she had not observed his distress; that she
was still standing there in front of the easel. This betrothal was an
intervention that had never entered into any of his thoughts or dreams
of her. He had always pictured her as free, quite free, following her
whims and ambitions within the limitations of a meager purse. He sat
there, stunned, for a moment, and then remembered, dully, that he did
not even know her name. The absurdities of his position, and the
futilities of all his long aspirations and love dreams seemed magnified
through the shock of sudden and bitter knowl