"I couldn't come last night. That's all, Marion."

"It is certainly not all. Why couldn't you come?"

"I worked late."

"Where?"

"At the plant."

"That's a lie, Graham. I called the plant. I'll tell you where you were.

You were out with a girl. You were seen, if you want to know it."

"Oh, if you are going to believe everything you hear about me?"

"Don't act like a child. Who was the girl?"

"It isn't like you to be jealous, Marion. I let you run around all the time with other fellows, but the minute I take a girl out for a little spin, you're jealous."

"Jealous!" She laughed nastily. But she knew she was losing her temper; and brought herself up short. Let him think she was jealous. What really ailed her was deadly fear lest her careful plan go astray. She was terrified. That was all. And she meant to learn who the girl was.

"I know who it was," she hazarded.

"I think you are bluffing."

"It was Delight Haverford."

"Delight!"

She knew then that she was wrong, but it was her chance to a.s.sail Delight and she took it.

"That--child!" she continued contemptuously. "Don't you suppose I've seen how she looks at you? I'm not afraid of her. You are too much a man of the world to let her put anything over on you. At least, I thought you were. Of course, if you like milk and water?"

"It was not Delight," he said doggedly. "And I don't think we need to bring her into this at all. She's not in love with me. She wouldn't wipe her feet on me."

Which was unfortunate. Marion smiled slowly.

"Oh! But you are good enough for me to be engaged to! I wonder!"

He went to the window and stood for a moment looking out. Then he went slowly back to her.

"I'm not good enough for you to be engaged to, Marion," he said.

"I--don't you want to call it a day?"

She was really terrified then. She went white and again, miserably, he mistook her agitation for something deeper.

"You want to break the engagement?"

"Not if you still want me. I only mean--I'm a pretty poor sort. You ought to have the best, and G.o.d help this country if I'm the best."

"Graham, you're in some sort of trouble?"

He drew himself up in boyish bravado. He could not tell her the truth.

It opened up too hideous a vista. Even his consciousness of the fact that the affair with Anna was still innocent did not dull his full knowledge of whither it was trending. He was cold and wretched.

"It's nothing," he muttered.

"You can tell me. You can tell me anything. I know a lot, you see. I'm no silly kitten. If you're in a fix, I'll help you. I don't care what it is, I'll help you. I? I'm crazy about you, Graham."

Anna's words, too!

"Look here, Marion," he said, roughly, "you've got to do one of two things. Either marry me or let me go."

"Let you go! I like that. If that is how you feel?"

"Oh--don't." He threw up his arm. "I want you. You know that. Marry me--to-morrow."

"I will not. Do you think I'm going to come into this family and have you cut off? Don't you suppose I know that Clayton Spencer hates the very chair I sit on? He'll come and beg me to marry you, some day. Until then?"

"You won't do it?"

"To-morrow? Certainly not."

And again he felt desperately his powerlessness to loosen the coils that were closing round him, fetters forged of his own red blood, his own youth, the woman-urge.

She was watching him with her calculating glance.

"You must be in trouble," she said.

"If I am, it's you and mother who have driven me there."

He was alarmed then, and lapsed into dogged silence. His anxiety had forced into speech thoughts that had never before been articulate. He was astounded to hear himself uttering them, although with the very speaking he realized now that they were true.

"Sorry, Marion," he muttered. "I didn't mean all that. I'm excited.

That's all."

When he sat down beside her again and tried to take her hand, she drew it away.

"You've been very cruel, Graham," she said. "I've been selfish. Every girl who is terribly in love is selfish. I am going to give you your ring, and leave you free to do whatever you want."

Her generosity overcame him. He was instantly ashamed, humbled.

"Don't!" he begged. "Don't let me go. I'll just go to the dogs. If you really care?"

"Care!" she said softly. And as he buried his head in her lap she stroked his hair softly. Her eyes, triumphant, surveyed the long room, with its satin-paneled walls, its French furniture, its long narrow gilt-framed mirrors softening the angles of the four corners.

Some day all this would be hers. For this she would exchange the untidy and imitation elegance of her present setting.

She stroked the boy's head absently.