was
leaving him finally to Miss Triscoe. If Miss Triscoe knew it she did
nothing the whole of that long, last afternoon to profit by the fact.
Burnamy spent a great part of it in the chair beside Mrs. March, and he
showed an intolerable resignation to the girl's absence.

"Yes," said March, taking the place Burnamy left at last, "that terrible
patience of youth!"

"Patience? Folly! Stupidity! They ought to be together every instant! Do
they suppose that life is full of such chances? Do they think that fate
has nothing to do but--"

She stopped for a fit climax, and he suggested, "Hang round and wait on
them?"

"Yes! It's their one chance in a life-time, probably."

"Then you've quite decided that they're in love?" He sank comfortably
back, and put up his weary legs on the chair's extension with the
conviction that love had no such joy as that to offer.

"I've decided that they're intensely interested in each other."

"Then what more can we ask of them? And why do you care what they do
or don't do with their chance? Why do you wish their love well, if it's
that? Is marriage such a very certain good?"

"It isn't all that it might be, but it's all that there is. What would
our lives have been without it?" she retorted.

"Oh, we should have got on. It's such a tremendous risk that we, ought
to go round begging people to think twice, to count a hundred, or a
nonillion, before they fall in love to the marrying-point. I don't mind
their flirting; that amuses them; but marrying is a different thing. I
doubt if Papa Triscoe would take kindly to the notion of a son-in-law he
hadn't selected himself, and his daughter doesn't strike me as a young
lady who has any wisdom to throw away on a choice. She has her little
charm; her little gift of beauty, of grace, of spirit, and the other
things that go with her age and sex; but what could she do for a fellow
like Burnamy, who has his way to make, who has the ladder of fame
to climb, with an old mother at the bottom of it to look after? You
wouldn't want him to have an eye on Miss Triscoe's money, even if she
had money, and I doubt if she has much. It's all very pretty to have a
girl like her fascinated with a youth of his simple traditions; though
Burnamy isn't altogether pastoral in his ideals, and he looks forward to
a place in the very world she belongs to. I don't think it's for us to
promote the affair."

"Well, perhaps you're right," she sighed. "I will let them alone