it making any difference whether a
preacher says a few words over us or not? Why, you can't feel that way.
You've seen too much of life, and your folks have always been show
people. They didn't hold any such ideas. Anyway, you got brains to think
for yourself. What joke you playing on me, honey? Oh, don't hold me off
like that, lift your head and look at me. I know you're going to laugh
in about a minute and then I'll know it's all a joke." Again he tried to
put his arm about her and again she threw him off.

"Let me alone," she cried harshly. "I'm thinking. Let me alone."

"Pearl," he besought wildly; his face had suddenly grown flabby and
white, his voice was broken with his desperate pleading. "Honey, you
don't want time to think. Why, there's nothing to think about. We're
going off on the train this afternoon to be happy together, and we don't
give a cent for anything else. We'd be married if we could. My Lord! I
should say so! But since we can't, we'll make the best of it."

He paused and looked at her, but there was something inflexible in her
attitude, some almost threatening aloofness that made him hesitate to
clasp her as he longed to do for fear he should meet another and final
rebuff. He waited a moment or two, but, as she did not speak, he began
again.

"I know you're joking, Pearl, but it's awful hard on me"--he wiped the
sweat from his brow. "You haven't got any such fool ideas. Of course you
haven't. They're for dead ones, old maid country school teachers, and
preachers and things like that, hypocrites that have got to make their
living by playing the respectable game. But we're not that kind, Pearl,
we're alive, and we're not afraid. We're going to be happier than two
people ever were in this world. Pearl, speak to me. I don't wonder that
your mother complains about the way you shut yourself up and never say a
word. Speak to me. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I'm thinking a lot of things," she answered, but without turning her
head to look at him, "and I ain't through yet. Now I've got to studying
on this matter, I'm a-going to think it out here and now."

"But what is there to think about?" in a sort of exasperated despair.
"Oh, Pearl, how can you be so cruel! I know you ain't got any of the
fool ideas of the dead ones I was talking about. You couldn't have; not
with Isobel Montmorenci for a grandmother, and Queenie Madrew for a
mother, and the same kind on your Pop's side of the house. You didn'