successfully enough to take my ease and take it where I choose. I
mention that because the life I offer you is offered to your boy as
well." He let this sink into her mind before summing up gravely:
"The offer I make is made deliberately, and at least I have a right
to a direct answer."

She was silent again, and then lifted a cleared gaze to his. "My
direct answer then is: if I were still Fanny Frisbee I would marry
you."

He bent toward her persuasively. "But you will be--when the divorce
is pronounced."

"Ah, the divorce--" She flushed deeply, with an instinctive
shrinking back of her whole person which made him straighten himself
in his chair.

"Do you so dislike the idea?"

"The idea of divorce? No--not in my case. I should like anything
that would do away with the past--obliterate it all--make everything
new in my life!"

"Then what--?" he began again, waiting with the patience of a wooer
on the uneasy circling of her tormented mind.

"Oh, don't ask me; I don't know; I am frightened."

Durham gave a deep sigh of discouragement. "I thought your coming
here with me today--and above all your going with me just now to see
my mother--was a sign that you were _not_ frightened!"

"Well, I was not when I was with your mother. She made everything
seem easy and natural. She took me back into that clear American air
where there are no obscurities, no mysteries--"

"What obscurities, what mysteries, are you afraid of?"

She looked about her with a faint shiver. "I am afraid of
everything!" she said.

"That's because you are alone; because you've no one to turn to.
I'll clear the air for you fast enough if you'll let me."

He looked forth defiantly, as if flinging his challenge at the great
city which had come to typify the powers contending with him for her
possession.

"You say that so easily! But you don't know; none of you know."

"Know what?"

"The difficulties--"

"I told you I was ready to take my share of the difficulties--and my
share naturally includes yours. You know Americans are great hands
at getting over difficulties." He drew himself up confidently. "Just
leave that to me--only tell me exactly what you're afraid of."

She paused again, and then said: "The divorce, to begin with--they
will never consent to it."

He noticed that she spoke as though the interests of the whole clan,
rather than her husband's individual claim, were to be considered;
and the use of the plural pronoun shock