and get tragic. And
that's all. That's--marriage, I guess. You're the lucky one, Portia."

The silence had lasted a good while before Rose noticed that there was
any special quality about it--became aware that since the end of her
outburst--of which she was ashamed even while she yielded to it, because
it represented not what she meant, but what, at the moment, she
felt--Portia had not stirred; had sat there as rigidly still as a figure
carved in ivory.

Becoming aware of that, she raised her head. Portia wasn't looking at
her, but down at her own clenched hands.

"It needed just that, I suppose," she heard her older sister say between
almost motionless lips. "I thought it was pretty complete before, but
it took that to make it perfect--that you think I'm the lucky one--lucky
never to have had a husband, or any one else for that matter, to love
me. And lucky now, to have to give up the only substitute I had for
that."

"Portia!" Rose cried out, for the mordant alkaline bitterness in her
sister's voice and the tragic irony in her face, were almost terrifying.
But the outcry might never have been uttered for any effect it had.

"I hoped this wouldn't happen," the words came steadily on, one at a
time. "I hoped I could get this over and get away out of your life
altogether without letting it happen. But I can't. Perhaps it's just as
well--perhaps it may do you some good. But that's not why I'm doing it.
I'm doing it for myself. Just for once, I'm going to let go! You won't
like it. You're going to get hurt."

Rose drew herself erect and a curious change went over her face, so that
you wouldn't have known she'd been crying. She drew in a long breath and
said, very steadily, "Tell me. I shan't try to get away."

"A man came to our house one day to collect a bill," Portia went on,
quite as if Rose hadn't spoken. "Mother was out, and I was at home. I
was seventeen then, getting ready to go to Vassar. Fred was a sophomore
at Ann Arbor, and Harvey was going to graduate in June. You were only
seven--I suppose you were at school. Anyhow, I was at home, and I let
him in, and he made a fuss. Said he'd have us black-listed by other
grocers, if it wasn't paid.

"It was the first I ever knew about anything like that. I knew we
weren't rich, of course--I never had quite enough pocket money. But the
idea of an old unpaid grocery bill made me sick. I talked things over
with mother the next day--told her I wasn't going to college