"There's no use going on," she said miserably¹, "you know you hate the insurance business, and you'll never do well in it."

 

"That's not it," he insisted stubbornly; "I hate going on alone. If you'll marry me and come with me and take a chance with me, I can make good at anything, but not while I'm worrying about you down here."

 

She was silent a long time before she answered, not thinking—for she had seen the end—but only waiting, because she knew that every word would seem more cruel than the last. Finally she spoke²:

 

"George, I love you with all my heart, and I don't see how I can ever love any one else but you. If you'd been ready for me two months ago I'd have married you—now I can't because it doesn't seem to be the sensible thing."

 

He made wild accusations—there was some one else—she was keeping something from him!

 

"No, there's no one else."

 

This was true. But reacting from the strain of this affair she had found relief in the company of young boys like Jerry Holt, who had the merit of meaning absolutely nothing in her life.

 

George didn't take the situation well, at all. He seized her in his arms and tried literally³ to kiss her into marrying him at once. When this failed, he broke into a long monologue⁴ of self-pity, and ceased only when he saw that he was making himself despicable in her sight. He threatened to leave when he had no intention of leaving, and refused to go when she told him that, after all, it was best that he should.

 

For a while she was sorry, then for another while she was merely kind.

 

"You'd better go now," she cried at last, so loud that Mrs. Cary came down-stairs in alarm.

 

"Is something the matter?"

 

"I'm going away, Mrs. Cary," said George brokenly. Jonquil had left the room.

 

"Don't feel so badly, George." Mrs. Cary blinked at him in helpless sympathy—sorry and, in the same breath, glad that the little tragedy was almost done. "If I were you I'd go home to your mother for a week or so. Perhaps after all this is the sensible thing——"

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