man, I marry my master. I like that poor fellow
well enough. He looks nice and he talks prettily, but I always associate
him with a poodle."

"But don't you think a man had better use his knees to kneel to you than
use them to walk away from you?"

The girl said no more. Her mother had told her Desborough's income, and
she knew that to break off the connection would bring about an ugly
family quarrel.

On the very next night after this conversation Desborough called as
usual, and began the ordinary pleasant and trifling gossip with which
the simple people passed the evenings. Towards nine o'clock the mother
rose.

"I shall have to leave you for about half an hour," she said, and the
girl at once knew that that half hour was meant for decision. A few
awkward minutes passed, and then Desborough made up his mind to speak,
"I won't hint, and I won't spend time in words with you, Marion. You
know all that I could say, and I should only vulgarize love if I
talked."

The girl replied very quietly, "Well, we will take that as understood,"
and gave him her hand.

She liked him at that moment.

Everybody in the town had known what was coming, and the engagement was
taken as a matter of course.

When things had gone too far to allow of drawing back, Miss Blanchflower
set herself to act a part. She did not really care for the man to whom
she was engaged. In her heart she despised him a little, yet her
artistic instinct allowed her to play at being in love, and she carried
the comedy through with dexterity. The unequal companionship grew closer
and closer, and Desborough was drawn deeper and deeper into forgetting
himself, and forgetting all finer ambitions. He only sought to please
the creature to whom he was slave, and the recognition which the girl
now gave him made his happiness too deep for words.

But all the time Miss Blanchflower was weary. She cared for gaiety, and
Desborough's mind was of a sombre cast; her artistic temperament made
her sensuous, and Desborough's reserve was almost forbidding. He never
spoke out, and the girl, who was always longing for violence of
sentiment and sudden changes of emotion, found herself condemned to a
dull, level life. Desborough would talk to her about poetry, but their
tastes did not agree. He would even tease her with futile metaphysical
talk until she scarcely knew whether to laugh or to flout him.

Another winter wore on, and the time for the wedding drew near. It
happen