ion of the door at the end of the hothouse and of the world that
lay beyond it. "I'm going to marry her."

She looked puzzled. Her air was that of a person who had never heard
similar words before. "You're going to--what?"

"I'm going to marry her, Rosie."

For a few seconds there was no change in her attitude. She seemed to be
taking his statement in. When the meaning came to her she withdrew her
eyes from his face, and dropped her arms heavily. More seconds passed
while she stood like that, meek, crushed, sentenced, her head partially
averted, her eyes downcast. Presently she moved, but it was only to
begin again, absently, mechanically, to pick the superfluous female
blossoms from the nearest vine, letting the delicate, pale-gold things
flutter to the ground. It was long before she spoke in a childish,
unresentful voice:

"Are you, Claude?"

He answered, firmly, "Yes, Rosie; I am."

She sighed. "Oh, very well."

He could see that for the moment she had no spirit to say more. Her very
movements betrayed lassitude, dejection. Though his heart smote him, he
felt constrained to speak on his own behalf.

"You'll remember that it wasn't my fault."

She went on with her picking silently, but with a weary motion of the
hands. The resumption of the task compelled her to turn her back to him,
in the position in which he had found her when he arrived.

"I'm simply doing what you would have done yourself--only Thor wouldn't
let you."

She made no response. The picking of the blossoms took her away from
him, step by step. He made another effort to let her see things from his
point of view.

"It wouldn't be honorable for me now, Rosie, to be paid for doing a
thing like that. It _would_ be payment to me, though he was going to
settle the money on you."

Even this last piece of information had no effect on her; she probably
didn't understand its terms. Her fingers picked and dropped the blossoms
slowly till she reached the end of her row.

He thought that now she would have to turn. If she turned he could
probably wring from her the word of dismissal or absolution that alone
would satisfy his conscience. He didn't know that she could slip around
the dense mass of foliage and be out of sight. When she did so,
amazement came to him slowly.

Expecting her to reappear, he stood irresolute. He could go after her
and clasp her in his arms again--or he could steal down the narrow aisle
of greenery and pass out of her li