his Oregon game to lose it."

"Do you play any game to lose it?"

"No! Better to have than to explain have not--that's one of my mottoes."

"No matter how?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I was only wondering."

"About what?"

"About men--and the differences."

"My dear, as a school-teacher you have learned to use a map, a
blackboard. Do you look on us men as ponderable, measurable,
computable?"

"A girl ought to if she's going to marry."

"Well, haven't you?"

"Have I?"

She still was staring straight ahead, cold, making no silent call for a
lover's arms or arts. Her silence was so long that at length even his
thick hide was pierced.

"Molly!" he broke out. "Listen to me! Do you want the engagement broken?
Do you want to be released?"

"What would they all think?"

"Not the question. Answer me!"

"No, I don't want it broken. I want it over with. Isn't that fair?"

"Is it?"

"Didn't you say you wanted me on any terms?"

"Surely!"

"Don't you now?"

"Yes, I do, and I'm going to have you, too!"

His eye, covetous, turned to the ripe young beauty of the maid beside
him. He was willing to pay any price.

"Then it all seems settled."

"All but one part. You've never really and actually told me you loved
me."

A wry smile.

"I'm planning to do that after I marry you. I suppose that's the
tendency of a woman? Of course, it can't be true that only one man will
do for a woman to marry, or one woman for a man? If anything went wrong
on that basis--why, marrying would stop? That would be foolish,
wouldn't it? I suppose women do adjust? Don't you think so?"

His face grew hard under this cool reasoning.

"Am I to understand that you are marrying me as a second choice, and so
that you can forget some other man?"

"Couldn't you leave a girl a secret if she had one? Couldn't you be
happier if you did? Couldn't you take your chance and see if there's
anything under the notion about more than one man and more than one
woman in the world? Love? Why, what is love? Something to marry on? They
say it passes. They tell me that marriage is more adjustable, means more
interests than love; that the woman who marries with her eyes open is
apt to be the happiest in the long run. Well, then you said you wanted
me on any terms. Does not that include open eyes?"

"You're making a hard bargain--the hardest a man can be obliged to
take."

"It was not of my seeking."

"You said you loved me--at first."

"No. Only