do you propose that we should do?"

He had never come to anything so bluntly definite before. With that
common sense of hers which was always looking for openings that would
lead to common-sense results, Rosie took it as an opportunity. She
showed that she had given some attention to the matter, though she
expressed herself with hesitation. They were sitting in the most
embowered recess the hothouse could afford--in a little shrine she kept
free, yet secret, for the purpose of their meetings. She let him hold
both her hands, though her face and most of her person were averted from
him as she spoke. She spoke with an anxiety to let him see that in
marrying her he wouldn't be letting himself down too low.

"There's that little house in Schoolhouse Lane," she faltered. "The
Lippitts used to live in it."

"Well?"

"If we lived there, I could manage--with a girl." She brought out the
subordinate clause with some confusion, for the keeping of "a girl" was
an ambition to which it was not quite easy to aspire. She thought it
best, however, to be bold, and stammered on, "We could get one for about
four a week."

He let her go on.

"And if we lived in the Lippitt house I could slip across our own yard,
and across Mrs. Willert's yard--she wouldn't mind!--and keep an eye on
things here. Mother's ever so much better. She's taking hold again--"

"Then why couldn't we go and settle in Paris?"

"Because--don't you see, Claude?--that's not the only thing. There's
father and Matt and the business. I must be on hand to--to prop them up.
If I were to go, everything would come down with a crash--even if your
father didn't make any more trouble about the lease. I suppose if we
were married he wouldn't do _that_?"

Though he kept silence, his nervous, fastidious, super-fine soul was
screaming. Why couldn't he have been allowed to keep the poignant joy of
touching her, of breathing her acrid, earthy atmosphere, of kissing her
lips and her eyelids, to himself? It was an intoxication--but no one
wanted intoxication all the time. It was curious that a life in this
delirious state should be forced on him by the brother who wished him
well. It was still more curious that he should feel obliged to force it
on himself in order not to be a cad.

He didn't despise Rosie for the poverty of her ideals. On the contrary,
her ideals were exactly suited to the little rustic thing she was. If he
could have been Strephon to her Chloe it would have