been too generous, too easy; that's the trouble."

"'Generous?'" gently. "'Generous?'... Is it generous for a man with
nothing and no prospect of anything to take a girl out of a home where
money was never a consideration, and transplant her into another where
practically it is the only thought?... 'Generous' for his own pleasure,
to undertake to teach her a financial lesson he knew to a moral certainty
in advance she could never learn? Do you honestly call that 'generous'?"

"But she could learn. It--was her duty."

"Duty!" Roberts laughed tolerantly. "Is 'duty' in the dictionary you use
a synonym for 'cooking' and 'scrubbing' and 'drudgery'? Is that your
interpretation?"

"Sometimes--in this case, yes; for a time."

"Permanently, you mean?"

"No; for a time--until Harry got on his feet."

"He'll never get on his feet unaided. Instead he'll get more and more
wobbly all the time. The past proves the future. He's proved it."

"You're simply horrid." There were real tears in the girl's eyes now, not
a mere premonition. "I'm sorry I ever told you anything about them."

"I know I'm horrid, grant it. A friend I once had told me I was a
fish,--cold-blooded like one. Nature made me that way, you see, so I
can't help it. And still I'm inclined to believe if Mrs. Randall had
chanced to select any other lawyer in town there'd be a real separation,
instead of one in prospect, right now."

Elice Gleason looked up penitently.

"I'm sorry," she said simply. "I didn't mean that."

"I don't doubt it," equally simply.

"You're so blunt and logical though; so--abstract."

"Yes; I am that way."

The girl drew a long breath. Seemingly, after all, the victory was hers.

"Well, what are we going to do about it? We, their friends, have to do
something."

"Yes, that's the question--what?"

"Margery will never go back now of herself. I know her."

"No; she'll never go back of herself, never. Do you blame her?"

No answer. The query was sudden.

"Honest, do you blame her?" insistently.

"I thought I did. I don't know--I don't know."

"Does 'love, honor, and obey' mean 'wash, bake, and scrub' to a girl who
has never in her life before done any of the three?"

Still silence.

"Would you, if you were in her place, come back--would you?"

"I?" It was almost a gasp. "I'm not like Margery. I've counted pennies
all my life." A sudden flame. "But why do you bring me in?"

"Why? That's true. I had no right. I apologize. T