up.

True, he might have accepted an offer that even now lay open on his
desk; a tempting offer, too, from a big corporation who recognized the
influence of his old family upon their particular line of business; but
it was a line that his father and his grandfather had scorned to touch,
and he had grown up with an honest contempt for it. He just could not
bring himself to wrest the living from the poor and needy, and plunder
the unsuspecting, and he knew that was what it would be if he closed
with this offer. Not yet had he been reduced to such depths, he told
himself, shutting his fine lips in a firm curve. "No, not if he
starved!"

That was the legitimate worry that ruffled his handsome brow as he sat
before his desk frowning at that letter. He meant to begin dictation on
its answer in another five minutes or so, but meantime he was forcing
himself to go over every point and make it strong and clear to himself,
so that he should say, "No!" strongly and clearly to the corporation. It
might do harm to make his reason for declining so plain, but he owed it
to his self-respect to give it nevertheless, and he meant to do so.
After all, he had no business so far to harm, so what did it matter? If
nothing turned up pretty soon to give him a start he would have to
change his whole plan of life and take up something else where one did
not have to wait for a reputation before he could have a chance to show
what was in him.

But underneath the legitimate reason for his annoyance this morning
there ran a most foolish little fretting, a haunting discomfort.

He had taken his cousin to a wedding the night before because her
husband had been called away on business, and she had no one to escort
her. They had been late and the church was crowded. He had had to
stand, and as he idly looked over the audience he suddenly looked full
into the great sad eyes of the sweetest little bride he had ever seen.
He had not been a young man to spend his time over pretty faces,
although there were one or two nice girls in whom he was mildly
interested. He had even gone so far as to wonder now and then which of
them he would be willing to see sitting at his table day after day the
rest of his life, and he had not yet come to a satisfactory conclusion.
His cousin often rallied him about getting married, but he always told
her it would be time enough to think about that when he had an income to
offer her.

But when he saw that flower-face, his