course I know my father and mother are poor, and that they
have kept up a sort of position which ranks them among the 'shabby
genteel,'--and I suppose if I don't marry quickly I shall have to do
something for a living----"

She broke off, embarrassed by the keenness of the gaze he fixed upon
her.

"Many good, many beautiful, many delicate women 'do something,' as you
put it, for a living," he said slowly. "But the fight is always fierce,
and the end is sometimes bitter. It is better for a woman that she
should be safeguarded by a husband's care and tenderness than that she
should attempt to face the world alone."

A flashing smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.

"Why, yes, I quite agree with you," she retorted playfully. "But if no
husband come forward, then it cannot be helped!"

He rose, and, pushing away his chair, walked up and down in silence.

She watched him with a sense of growing irritability, and her heart beat
with uncomfortable quickness. Why did he seem to hesitate so long?
Presently he stopped in his slow movement to and fro, and stood looking
down upon her with a fixed intensity which vaguely troubled her.

"It is difficult to advise," he said, "and it is still more difficult to
control. In your case I have no right to do either. I am an old man, and
you are a very young woman. You are beginning your life,--I am ending
mine. Yet, young as you are, you say with apparent sincerity that you do
not believe in love. Now I, though I have loved and lost, though I have
loved and have been cruelly deceived in love, still believe that if the
true, heavenly passion be fully and faithfully experienced, it must
prove the chief joy, if not the only one, of life. You think otherwise,
and perhaps you correctly express the opinion of the younger generation
of men and women. These appear to crowd more emotion and excitement into
their lives than ever was attained or attainable in the lives of their
forefathers, but they do not, or so it seems to me, secure for
themselves as much peace of mind and satisfaction of soul as were the
inheritance of bygone folk whom we now call 'old-fashioned.' Still, you
may be right in depreciating the power of love--from your point of view.
All the same, I should be sorry to see you entering into a loveless
marriage."

For a moment she was silent, then she suddenly plunged into speech.

"Dear Mr. Helmsley, do you really think all the silly sentiment talked
and written about love