"you
might as well see a wedding stationer."

"I could influence him," she insisted; "I'd at least count for as much
as those shovellers and furnace men."

"But not," he proceeded relentlessly, "against the Essie Scofield you
dismissed so easily. I don't doubt for a minute the unhappiness you
spoke of; it would he a part of his inheritance; and you'd never charm
it out of him. Damn it, Mariana," he burst out, "he's inferior! That's
all, inferior." Anger and resentment destroyed his caution, his planned
logic, restraint. "I can see what your life would be, if you can't. You
would live in a no-man's land; and all the clergymen in the world
couldn't make you one."

"It wouldn't be the clergymen, Howat," she said simply. "And you mustn't
think I am only a silly with her first young man. I have kissed them
before, Howat; yes, and liked it. I am not happy with Jim; it's
something else, like tearing silk. He is so confident and so helpless;
he's drinking now, too."

"I suppose that is an added attraction," he commented. She chose to
ignore this. "I half promised him," she continued, "to take dinner with
his family. He will be in the city next week. I said I thought you'd
bring me."

"Well, I won't," he replied in a startled energy. "Mariana, you're out
of your head. Go to Byron Polder's house! Me!" In his excitement he
dropped a lighted cigarette on the Chinese rug. "I have no one else,"
she told him. "Perhaps I'll marry Jim, and go away ... I thought you
might want to be with me, at the last."

He fumbled for his glass, fixed it in his eye, and then dropped it out,
clearing his throat sharply. He rose and crossed the room, and looked
out through the open door at the night. The stars were hazy, and there
was a constant reflection of lightning on the horizon. Howat Penny swore
silently at his increasing softness, his betrayal by his years. Yet it
might be a good thing for her to see the Polder family assembled,
Byron--he was a pretentious looking fool--at one end of the table and
Delia Mullen Polder at the other. There were more children, too. But if
it became necessary, heaven knew how he would explain all this to
Charlotte. "I believe," he said, apparently innocently, "that they live
in the north end of the city."

"It won't damage you," she replied indirectly. Already, he thought with
poignant regret, a part of the old Mariana had gone; her voice was
older, darker with maturity.

XXVI

Howat Penny arrive