n defense, "everybody will think
he threw _you_ over. You'll simply become an old glove. There's not much
choice."

"But my pride, my own self-respect! Edith Vars, you'd sell your soul for
society; and you'd sell me too! But you can't--you can't! Let go my
wrist. I'm sick of the whole miserable game. I'm sick of it. Let me go."

"And I'm sick of it too," flung back Edith. "But _I've_ got a daughter's
future to think about, I'd have you know, as well as yours. I've worked
hard to establish ourselves in this place, and I've succeeded too. And
now you come along, and look at the mess we're in! Humiliated! Ignored!
Insulted! It isn't my fault, is it? If I'd paddled my own canoe, I'd be
all right today."

"You can paddle it hereafter," I flashed out. "I shan't trouble you any
more."

"Yes, that's pleasant, after you've jabbed it full of holes!"

"Let me go, Edith," I said and pulled away my wrist with a jerk.

"Are you going to give it back to him?"

"Yes, I am!" I retorted and fled down the stairs, out of the door,
across the porch, and into the moonlit garden as fast as I could go.

"Here, Breck--here's your ring! Take it. You're free. You don't need to
hang around, as you say, any more. And I'm free, too, thank heaven! I
would have borne the glory and the honor of your name with pride. Your
mother's friendship would have been a happiness, but for no name, and
for no woman's favor will I descend to a stolen marriage. You're
mistaken in me. Everybody seems to be. I'm mistaken in myself. I don't
want to marry you after all. I don't love you, and I don't want to marry
you. I'm tired. Please go."

He stared at me. "You little fool!" he exclaimed, just like Edith. Then
he slipped the box into his pocket, shrugged his shoulders, and in truly
chivalrous fashion added, "Don't imagine I'm going to commit suicide or
anything tragic like that, young lady, because I'm not."

"I didn't imagine it," I replied.

"I'm going to marry Gale Oliphant," he informed me coolly. "I'm going to
give her a ring in a little box--and she'll wear hers. You'll see." He
produced a cigarette and lit it. "She's no fish," he added. "She's a
pippin, she is. Good night," he finished, and turned and walked out of
the garden.

Three days later I went away from Hilton. Edith's tirades became
unendurable. I didn't want even to eat her food. The spinet desk, the
bureau, the chiffonier, the closet, I cleared of every trace of me. I
stripped the bed o