"And it need n't ever be anything else, need it?"

"Certainly not," he declared. "That would spoil everything. That's what we're trying to avoid."

To his surprise, she suddenly rose as if to leave.

"Look here!" he exclaimed. "Can't we settle this right now--so that we won't have to worry about it?"

He disliked having anything left to worry about.

"I should think the least you'd expect of me would be to think it over," she answered.

"It would be so much simpler just to go ahead," he declared.

There seemed to be no apparent reason in the world why she should not a.s.sent to Monte's proposal. In and of itself, the arrangement offered her exactly what she craved--the widest possible freedom to lead her own life without let or hindrance from any one, combined with the least possible responsibility. As far as she could see, it would remove once and for all the single fretting annoyance that, so far, had disarranged all her plans.

Monte's argument was sound. Once she was married, the world of men would let her alone. So, too, would the world of women. She could face them both with a challenge to dispute her privileges. All this she would receive without any of the obligations with which most women pay so heavily for their release from the bondage in which they are held until married. For they pay even more when they love--pay the more, in a way, the more they love. It cannot be helped.

She was thinking of the Warrens--the same Warrens Monte had visited when Chic, Junior had the whooping cough. She had been there when Chic, Junior was born. Marion had wanted her near--in the next room.

She had learned then how they pay--these women who love.

She had been there at other times--less dramatic times. It was just the same. From the moment Marion awoke in the morning until she sank wearily into her bed at night, her time, her thought, her heart, her soul almost, was claimed by some one else. She gave, gave, until nothing was left for herself.

Marjory, in her lesser way, had done much the same--so she knew the cost. It was rare when she had been able to leave her aunt for a whole day and night. Year after year, she too had awakened in the morning to her tasks for another--for this woman who had demanded them as her right. She too had given her time, her thought, her soul, almost, to another. If she had not given her heart, it was perhaps because it was not asked; perhaps, again, it was because she had no heart to give.

Sometimes, in that strange, emotionless existence she had lived so long where duty took the place of love, she had wondered about that. If she had a heart, it never beat any faster to let her know she had it.

She paid her debt of duty in full--paid until her release came. In the final two weeks of her aunt's life she had never left her side.

Patiently, steadfastly, she helped with all there was in her to fight that last fight. When it was over, she did not break down, as the doctors predicted. She went to bed and slept forty-eight hours, and awoke ten years younger.

She awoke as one out of bondage, and stared with keen, eager eyes at a new world. For a few weeks she had twenty-four hours a day of her own.

Then Peter had come, and others had come, and finally Teddy had come.

They wanted to take from her that which she had just gained--each in his own fashion.

"Give us of yourself," they pleaded. "Begin again your sacrifices."

Peter put it best, even though he did not say much. But she had only to look in his eyes and read his proposal.

"Come with me and stand by my side while I carve my career," was what his eyes said. "I'll love you and make you love me as Marion loves.

You 'll begin the day with me, and you 'll guard my home while I 'm gone until night, and you'll share my honors and my disappointments, and perhaps a time will come when Marion will stand in the next room, as once you stood in the next room. Then--"

It was at this point she drew back. Then her soul would go out into the new-born soul, and after that she would only live and breathe and hope through that other. When Marion laughed and said that she was as she was because she did not know, Marion was wrong. It was because she did know--because she knew how madly and irrevocably she would give, if ever she gave again. There would be nothing left for herself at all.

It would be as if she had died.

She did not wish to give like that. She wished to live a little. She wished to be herself a little--herself as she now was. She wished to get back some of those years between seventeen and twenty-seven--taste the world as it was then.

What Teddy offered was different. Something was there that even Peter did not have--something that made her catch her breath once or twice when he sang to her like a white-robed choir-boy. It was as if he asked her to take his hand and jump with him into a white-hot flame.

He carried her farther back in her pa.s.sions than Peter did--back to seventeen, back to the primitive, elemental part of her. He really made her heart beat. But on guard within her stood the older woman, and she could not move.

Now came Monte--asking nothing. He asked nothing because he wished to give nothing. She was under no illusion about that. There was not anything idealistic about Monte. This was to be purely an arrangement for their mutual comfort. They were to be companions on an indefinite tour of the world--each paying his own bills.

At thirty-two he needed a comrade of some sort, and in his turn he offered himself as an escort. She found no apparent reason, then, even when she had spent half the night getting as far as this, why she should not immediately accept his proposal. Yet she still hesitated.

It was not that she did not trust Monte. Not the slightest doubt in the world existed in her mind about that. She would trust him farther than she would even Peter--trust him farther than any man she had ever met. He was four-square, and she knew it. Perhaps it was a curious suggestion--it was just because of this that she hesitated.

In a way, she was considering Monte. She did not like to help him give up responsibilities that might be good for him. She was somewhat disappointed that he was willing to give them up. He did not have the excuse she had--years of self-sacrifice. He had been free all his life to indulge himself, and he had done so. He had never known a care, never known a heartache. Having money, he had used it decently, so that he had avoided even the compensating curse that is supposed to come with money.

She knew there was a lot to Monte. She had sensed that from the first.

He had proved it in the last two weeks. It only needed some one to bring it out, and he would average high. Love might do it--the same white-hot love that had driven Teddy mad.

But that was what he was avoiding, just as she was. Well, what of it?

If one did not reach the heights, then one did not sound the depths.

After all, it was not within her province to direct Monte's life. She was selfish--she had warned him of that. He was selfish--and had warned her.

Yet, as she lay there in her bed, she felt that she was about to give up something forever, and that Monte was about to give up something forever. It is one thing not to want something, and another to make an irrevocable decision never to have it. Also, it is one thing to fret one's self into an unnecessary panic over a problem at night, and another to handle it lightly in the balmy sunshine of a Parisian springtime morning.

Monte had risen early and gone out and bought her violets again. When she came in, he handed them to her, and she buried her face in their dewy fragrance. It was good to have some one think of just such little attentions. Then, too, his boyish enthusiasm swept her off her guard.

He was so eager and light-hearted this morning that she found herself breaking into a laugh. She was still laughing when he brought back to her last night's discussion.

"Well, have you decided to marry me?" he demanded.

She shook her head, her face still buried in the violets.

"What's worrying you about it?" he asked.

"You, Monte," she answered.

"I? Well, that isn't much. I looked up the time-tables, and we could take the six-ten to-night if you were ready."

"I could n't possibly be ready," she replied decidedly.

"To-morrow, then?"

When he insisted upon being definite, the proposition sounded a great deal more absurd than when he allowed it to be indefinite. She was still hesitating when Marie appeared.

"A telephone for mademoiselle," she announced.

Monte heard her startled exclamation from the next room. He hurried to the door. She saw him, and, placing her hand over the telephone, turned excitedly.

"It's Teddy again," she trembled.

"Let me talk to him," he commanded.

"He says he does n't believe in our--our engagement."

"We're to be married to-morrow?" he asked quickly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "We're to be married to-morrow?"]