e man pulled up his horse grumbling, and turned round. Courtlaw sat
with folded arms. He said nothing.

"My friend," she said, "no! Let me tell you this. Nothing would induce
me to marry you, or any man at present. I am a pauper, and as yet I
have not discovered how to earn money. I am determined to fight my own
little battle with the world--there must be a place for me somewhere,
and I mean to find it. Afterwards, it may be different. If I were to
marry you now I should feel a dependent being all my life--a sort of
parasitical creature without blood or muscle. I should lose every
scrap of independence--even my self-respect. However good you were to
me, and however happy I was in other ways, I should find this
intolerable."

"All these things," he muttered bitterly, "this desperate resolve to
take your life into your own hands, your unnatural craving for
independence, would never trouble you for a moment--if you really
cared."

"Then perhaps," she answered, with a new coldness in her tone,
"perhaps I really do not care. No, don't interrupt me. I think that I
am a little disappointed in you. You appear to be amongst those strong
enough in all ordinary matters, but who seem to think it quite
natural and proper to give in at once and play the weakling
directly--one cares. Do you think that it makes for happiness to force
oneself into the extravagant belief that love is the only thing in the
world worth having, and to sacrifice for it independence,
self-respect, one's whole scheme of life. I cannot do it, David.
Perhaps, as you say, I do not really care--but I cannot do it."

He was strangely silent. He did not even reply to her for several
minutes.

"I cannot reason with you," he said at last wearily. "I speak from my
heart, and you answer from your brain."

"Believe me that I have answered you wisely," she said, in a gentler
tone, "wisely for you too, as well as myself. And now you must go
back, take up your work and think all this over. Presently you will
see that I am right, and then you shall take your vacation over here,
and we will be good comrades again."

He smiled bitterly as he handed her from the cab. He declined to come
in.

"Will you tell Sydney that I will see him in the morning," he said. "I
am staying at the Savoy. He can come round there."

"You will shake hands with me, please," she begged.

He took her fingers and lifted his eyes to hers. Something he saw
there made him feel for a moment as