w. Her eyes made him feel the accomplice in some monstrous traffic
upon his daughter's womanhood, and it was difficult to remain complacent
under her cross-examining.

"Your mother has had the same dream and hope. If the marriage was not
repugnant to you, I dare say it would take cavilling to criticize it."

"You don't see, then ..."--the girl felt suddenly faint and dizzy as she
moved a little to the side and leaned inertly against the wall--"you
don't see that the very chivalry of Uncle Tom's conduct ... enslaves me
a ... hundred times ... more strongly ... than a cruder effort to force
me? You don't see that ... he's paid for me ... and that if Boone came
today ... with a marriage license ... I couldn't marry him ... without
feeling that I must buy ... myself back first?"

"That, of course, my dear, is a morbid and distorted view."

"Is it? Haven't I eaten the food and worn out the clothes and acquired
the education that were all only items of an investment for Morgan's
future? Haven't I used these payments made on that investment only to
take them away from him and give them to some one else? I haven't even
been given the chance of protest against these chains of damnable
kindness."

"You seem, my dear, to have given your heart to Boone, and that settles
it, I suppose. I might wish it otherwise--Tom and your mother may still
cling to the other hope, but--"

"You say I've given my heart to Boone," she interrupted fiercely, "but I
find that it wasn't mine to give. I find that I wasn't a free agent. I
had already been mortgaged and remortgaged for things not only used by
me but by my mother, and--" She paused, and Masters added with a twisted
smile of chagrin,

"Yes--and your father."

"But how about Boone?" she demanded. "What of the debt owed to him? Did
they have the right to barter off his happiness as well as mine?"

"Tom Wallifarro," her father gravely reminded her, "has been a
benefactor to Boone. Tom Wallifarro has not complained. Moreover, the
wounds of youth are not quite so fatal as they seem when one suffers
them. If they were, few men would live to middle-age. I dare say Boone
would survive even if he lost you."

Anne's brain was dizzy and stunned. Mortification and wretchedness were
blurring the focus of her vision, and this suggestion that after all she
was exaggerating her importance in Boone Wellver's life seemed the
dictum she could not allow to pass unchallenged. With an instinctive
lashi