way of stating the fact, I suppose," he said, "is that you
two mean to marry and that you're satisfied that your reasons for making
the decision are valid. Well, if Mary corroborates you, as I have no
doubt she will, I'll face that fact as realistically as possible. I'll
agree not to, as you put it, sentimentalize."

Then he got up and held out his hand. "I mean that for a better welcome
that it sounds," he concluded. And if there was no real feeling of
kindliness for his prospective son-in-law behind the words, there was
what came to the same thing, a realization that this feeling was bound to
come in time. No candid-minded person could keep alive, for very long, a
grievance against Anthony March.

The physician in him spoke automatically while their hands were gripped.
"Good lord, man! You're about at the end of your rope. Exhausted--that's
what I mean. How long is it since you've fed?"

March was vague about this; wouldn't be drawn into the line John had been
diverted into. He answered another question or two of the same tenor with
half his mind and finally said--with the first touch of impatience he had
betrayed, "I'm all right! That can wait. There's one more thing I want
to say before you talk to Mary."

He seemed grateful for John's permission to sit down again, dropped into
his chair in a way that suggested he might have fallen into it in another
minute, and took the time he visibly needed for getting his wits into
working order again.

"I think I can see how the prospect must look to you," he began. "The
difficulties and objections that you see are, I guess, the same ones that
appeared to me. The fact that I'm not in her world, at all. That I've
never even tried to succeed nor get on, nor even to earn a decent living.
And that, however hard I work to change all that, it will only be by
perfectly extraordinary luck if I can contrive to make a life for her
that will be--externally anywhere near as good a life as the one she's
always taken for granted.

"It won't be as much worse, though, as you are likely to think. With the
help she'll give me I shall be able to earn a decent living. Unless that
opera of mine fails--laughably, and I don't believe it will, up at
Ravinia, it will help quite a lot. Make it possible for me to get some
pupils in composition. And I know I can write some songs that will be
publishable and singable--for persons who aren't musicians like Paula. I
did write two or three for the boys