and in him losing all thought of me. But
ex-Judge Bundy was not a superlatively wonderful man. He was only a
rich widower with two married daughters, and was old enough to be her
father. My estimate of my own worth was not so modest that I could
conceive of my interests ever being seriously jeopardized by this
pompous maker of nails. It was pleasanter to think that the fault lay
rather in my own unworthiness than in another's worth, and my pride
urged me to combat her, to prove that while I might not be all that a
woman of her ideals could ask, yet my shortcomings were those of my
fellows in mass and not of the individual.

"I do not understand, Gladys," I said, and I held out my hand to take
hers and to reassert my old ascendancy, but I was foiled by Blossom,
who darted at me with such fierceness as to compel me to draw back.

"David, I'm so sorry," she said. She looked me in the eyes and spoke
with the even voice of one who had entire command of herself. "The
plain truth is that I have made a great mistake. I really thought I
cared for you."

"And now you think you don't," I said, brushing aside such an absurdity
with a wave of my hand. "Nonsense! After four years, you can not tell
me that you have suddenly discovered that you never cared for me. I
can not give you up for some absurd whim."

She shook her head. "It is not a whim. I see clearly now. We were
very young when we became engaged, and I didn't understand how serious
the step really was. In the last week at sea I have had time to think
it all over, and now I know it best that after this we be just
friends--nothing more. You will forget me. You will find another
woman worthier of you."

Little as I knew of women, I realized that while these last two
statements might be perfectly true, to accept them as true would sever
the last strand of the cord which bound us. At that moment I did not
want to lose Gladys Todd. She was very lovely as she sat there, with
her eyes downcast, caressing her dog. She was the promised reward of
my years of work. For her I had labored, scrimped and saved, cramped
myself in a narrow room in a boarding-house, and almost shunned my
fellows, to realize our dream of the little house on the bit of green.
At that moment the dream was very dear to me and I could not see it
wrecked for some whim. I grew belligerent. I reached out my hand
again, as though by mere physical power I would prove my unchanging
mind, but