her--"are running away to New York
on Monday--to make our fortunes. You mustn't tell Ambo--yet; I'll tell
him in my own way. And I must _make_ my own way now, Phil. I've been a
lazy parasite long enough--too long! So please sit down and write me
subtle letters of introduction to any publishers you know. Maltby is
bound to help me, of course. You see, I'm feeling ruthless--or
shameless; I shall pull every wire in sight. So I'm counting on _The
Garden Exquisite_ for immediate bread and butter. I did my first article
for it in an hour when I first woke up this morning--just the
smarty-party piffle its readers and advertisers seem to demand.

"This sort of thing, Phil: 'The poets are wrong, as usual. Wild flowers
are not shy and humble, they are exclusive. How to know them is still a
social problem in American life, and very few of us have attained this
aristocratic distinction.' And so on! Two thousand silly salable
words--and I can turn on that soda-water tap at will. Are you listening?
Please tell me you don't think poor Sister--she refuses to leave me, and
I wouldn't let her anyway--will have to undergo martyrdom in a cheap
hall bedroom for the rest of her days?"

Needless to say, Phil did not approve of Susan's plan. He agreed with
her that under the given conditions she could not remain with me in New
Haven; and he commended her courage, her desire for independence. But
Susan would never, he felt, find her true pathway to independence,
either material or spiritual, as a journalistic free-lance in New York.
He admitted the insatiable public thirst for soda-water, but saw no
reason why Susan should waste herself in catering to it. He was by no
means certain that she could cater to it if she would.

"You'll too often discover," he warned her, "that your tap is running an
unmarketable beverage. The mortal taste for nectar is still undeveloped;
it remains the drink of the gods."

"But," Susan objected, "I can't let Ambo pay my bills from now on--I
can't! And Sister and I must live decently somehow! I'd like nothing
better than to be a perpetual fountain of nectar--supposing, you nice
old Phil, that I've ever really had the secret of distilling a single
drop of it. But you say yourself there's no market for it this side of
heaven, which is where we all happen to be. What do you want me to do?"

"Marry me."

"It wouldn't be fair to you, dear."

There was a momentary pause.

"Then," said Phil earnestly, "I want you t