hink you are
selfish--very selfish?"

"I believe the Bible says to leave all and cleave unto your wife,"
returned Garrison.

"Yes. But not your intended wife."

"But, you see, she is of the cleaving type."

"And why this hurry? Aren't you depriving your uncle and aunt
unnecessarily early?"

"But it is the only answer, as you pointed out. You then would be free."

He did not know why he was indulging in this repartee. Perhaps because
the situation was so novel, so untenable. But a strange, new force was
working in him that day, imparting a peculiar twist to his humor. He was
hating himself. He was hopeless, cynical, bitter.

If he could have laid hands upon that eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, he
would have wrung his accomplished neck to the best of his ability.
He, Snark, must have known about this prenatal engagement. And his
bitterness, his hopelessness, were all the more real, for already he
knew that he cared, and cared a great deal, for this curious girl with
the steady gray eyes and wealth of indefinite hair; cared more than he
would confess even to himself. It seemed as if he always had cared; as
if he had always been looking into the depths of those great gray eyes.
They were part of a dream, the focusing-point of the misty past--forever
out of focus.

The girl had been considering his answer, and now she spoke.

"Of course," she said gravely, "you are not sincere when you say your
primal reason for leaving would be in order to set me free. Of course
you are not sincere."

"Is insincerity necessarily added to my numerous physical infirmities?"
he bantered.

"Not necessarily. But there is always the love to make a virtue of
necessity--especially when there's some one waiting on necessity."

"But did I say that would be my primal reason for leaving--setting you
free? I thought I merely stated it as one of the following blessings
attendant on virtue."

"Equivocation means that you were not sincere. Why don't you go, then?"

"Eh?" Garrison looked up sharply at the tone of her voice.

"Why don't you go? Hurry up! Reward the clinging girl and set me free."

"Is there such a hurry? Won't you let me ferret out a pair of pajamas,
to say nothing of good-bys?"

"How silly you are!" she said coldly, rising. "The question, then, rests
entirely with you. Whenever you make up your mind to go--"

"Couldn't we let it hang fire indefinitely? Perhaps you could learn
to love me. Then there would be no need to go."