.

"Will your father let you do that?" Her eyes widened with surprise,
and the surprise nettled him.

"I don't know. He's thinking about it. Anyway, a man must decide for
himself what his career will be, and if he won't let me, I'll earn the
money and go without his letting me."

"Wouldn't that be the best way, anyway?"

"What do you mean? To go without his consent?"

"Of course not--goosey." She laughed and was herself again, but he
liked her better the other way. "To earn the money and then go.
It--it--would be more--more as if you were in earnest."

"My soul! Do you think I'm not in earnest? Do you think I'm not in
love with you?"

Instantly she was serious and shy again. His heart leaped. He loved to
feel his power over her thus. Still she tantalized him. "I'm not
meaning about loving me. That's not the question. I mean it would look
more as if you were in earnest about becoming an artist."

"No. The real question is, Do you love me? Will you marry me when I
come back?" She was silent and he came nearer. "Say it. Say it. I must
hear you say it before I leave." Her lips trembled as if she were
trying to form the words, and their eyes met.

"Yes--if--if--"

Then he caught her to him, and stopped her mouth with kisses. He did
not know himself. He was a man he had never met the like of, and he
gloried in himself. It seemed as if he heard bells ringing out in joy.
Then he looked up and saw Mary Ballard's eyes fixed on him.

"Peter Junior--what are you doing?" Her voice shook.

"I--I'm kissing Betty."

"I see that."

"We are to be married some day--and--"

"You are precipitate, Peter Junior."

Then Betty did what every woman does when her lover is blamed, no
matter how earnestly she may have resisted him before. She went
completely over to his side and took his part.

"He's going away, mother. He's going away to be gone--perhaps for
years; and I've--I've told him yes, mother,--so it isn't his fault."
Then she turned and fled to her own room, and hid her flaming face in
the pillow and wept.

"Sit here with me awhile, Peter Junior, and we'll talk it all over,"
said Mary.

He obeyed her, and looking squarely in her eyes, manfully told her his
plans, and tried to make her feel as he felt, that no love like his
had ever filled a man's heart before. At last she sent him up to the
studio to tell her husband, and she went in and finished Betty's task,
putting the bread--alas! too light by this time--in t