fear," Imogene added, a little sadly. "At
least, now. It would be too dull."

"Then I must marry her at once."

Imogene gave him a strange look.

"She is waiting," said she.

"For marriage?"

"No, to see how you succeed. Oh, to have to say these things is
dreadful, Lee!" she exclaimed. But Bryant brushed this aside with a
gesture almost august in its indifference. "If you finish your project
on time, she will be ready for the ceremony," the girl went on. "If
you fail, she'll postpone it until you're able to provide more than
just a roof, a chair, and a broom. Her very words! Love must not
prevent people from being practical, from her viewpoint. So, as I
say, she's waiting to discover the outcome." A corner of her mouth
twisted up while she paused. Then she concluded in a low voice, "And
probably something else."

Bryant had again fallen into study. Imogene doubted if he had heard
her added remark, and she could not divine from his countenance how
fierce or in what direction his covered passion was beating.

"It will be too late," said he, suddenly and, as it seemed to her,
irrelevantly.

Then she thought that she understood.

"He's going home in a few days, for the Christmas holidays," she
stated. "Possibly then Ruth will--I'm planning for us all to be at
uncle's, you with us."

"Gretzinger wasn't in my mind."

"You said 'too late'," she pursued. "Naturally I supposed your
reference to be of them."

The gravity of his face deepened.

"I was thinking of myself," said he, turning his eyes upon her. "If
we're not married soon, very soon, it will be too late. I mean that it
would be a mockery. For me, at any rate. One may wish to go one way,
and be swept another, especially when the mooring line is slack." His
breast rose and fell at a quick, agitated breath. "But promise me that
you'll not speak of this to Ruth."

"The very thing to bring her round, perhaps."

"More likely to fill her with despair."

This was something Imogene could not grasp. It was so inexplicable, so
extravagant, so perverse, that her cheeks grew hot.

"I can't follow you at all," she cried, indignantly. "Ruth alarmed,
jealous, in doubt--yes, I can credit her with any one of those
feelings. But despair! She lays her plans too far ahead to be led into
despair."

"Even if she knew I had ceased to love her? When she understood our
marriage would be a hollow ceremony?"

"Would it be that if you succeed with your project?"

Brya