nt you to promise to be my wife, some day.' 'Then you must let
me tell you all my story first,' she said. 'I won't answer till you
know everything.' And so she told me what it seems you know. Well, if I
thought much of her before, I thought a thousand times as much after
that! And do you know what? I believe it was on my account that she
want and took that place in the shop."

"Precisely," said Waymark.

"You think so?" cried the other, delighted.

"I guessed as much when she met me that day and said I might let you
know where she was."

"Ha!" exclaimed O'Gree, with a long breath.

"And so the matter is settled?"

"All but the most important part of it. There's no chance of my being
able to marry for long enough to come. Now, can you give me any advice?
I've quite made up my mind to leave Tootle. The position isn't worthy
of a gentleman; I'm losing my self-respect. The she-Tootle gets worse
and worse. If I don't electrify her, one of these days, with an
outburst of ferocious indignation, she will only have my patience to
thank. Let her beware how she drives the lion to bay!"

"Couldn't you get a non-resident mastership?"

"I must try, but the pay is so devilish small."

"We must talk the matter over."

CHAPTER XXI

DIPLOMACY

Waymark had a good deal of frank talk with himself before meeting Ida
again on the Sunday. Such conversation was, as we know, habitual. Under
the circumstances, however, he felt that it behoved him to become
especially clear on one or two points; never mind what course he might
ultimately pursue, it was always needful to him to dissect his own
motives, that he might at least be acting with full consciousness.

One thing was clear enough. The fiction of a mere friendship between
himself and Ida was impossible to support. It had been impossible under
the very different circumstances of a year ago, and was not likely to
last a week, now that Ida could so little conceal how her own feelings
had changed. What, then, was to be their future? Could he accept her
love, and join their lives without legal bond, thinking only of present
happiness, and content to let things arrange themselves as they would
in the years to come?

His heart strongly opposed such a step. Clearly Ida had changed her
life for his sake, and was undergoing hardships in the hope of winning
his respect as well as his love. Would she have done all this without
something of a hope that she might regain her place