with tenderness--"a long fight--and it is not over yet. I'm selfish
enough to want you---that is about 99.9% of me is selfish, the other
infinitesimal part cries out for me to play the man--and do the square
thing--I am making a bad job of this, but maybe you understand."

He came over and turned her head around until she faced him.

"I have begun at the wrong end of this, dear, I talk as if you had
said--you cared--I have no right to think you do. I should remember
you are only a child--and haven't thought about--things like this!"

"O, haven't I, though," she cried eagerly. "I've been thinking--all
the time--I've never stopped thinking--I've had the loveliest time
thinking."

The doctor went on in a measured tone, as one who must say the words
he hates to utter. All the color had gone from his voice, all the
flexibility. It was as hard as steel now, and as colorless as a dusty
road.

"Pearl, I am going to say what I should say, not what I want to
say.... Supposing I did induce you to marry me now. Suppose I could
... in ten years from now, when you are a woman grown, you might
hate me for taking advantage of your youth, your inexperience, your
childish fancy for me--I am not prepared to take that risk--it would
be a criminal thing to run any chances of spoiling a life like yours."

Her eyes looked straight into his, and there was a little muttered cry
in them that smote his heart with pity. He had seen it in the faces of
little children, his patients, who, though hurt, would not cry.

"And I am selfish enough to hope that in a few years, when you are old
enough to choose, you will think of what I am doing now, and know the
sacrifice I am making, and come to me of your own free will--no, I did
not intend to say that--I do not mean what I said--the world is yours,
Pearl, to choose as you will--I have no claim on you! You start fair."

Pearl's cheeks had lost a little of their rosy glow, and her face
had taken on a cream whiteness. She stood up and looked at him, with
widely opened eyes. A girl of smaller soul might have misunderstood
him, and attributed to him some other motive. Though Pearl did not
agree with him, she believed every word he had said.

"Supposing," she said eagerly, "that I do not want to start
fair--and don't want to be free to choose--supposing I have made my
choice--supposing I understand you better than you do yourself, and
tell you now that you are not a second-hand doctor--that you are a