“Nothing can help her now,” said Jack. “Her parents have been and gone and done it, as far as she’s concerned, forever. Prayer won’t change her nose, although age may broaden it still more.”
“Don’t you believe that nothing can help her now. A good-looking husband could help her lots. I’ve seen homelier girls than she go just everywhere—on account of their husbands, you know. That was where my philosophy came in.”
“I’d quite forgotten your philosophy.” He laughed again as he spoke. “I must apologize. Please tell me more about it.”
She laughed, too.
“I’m going to. You see, I was lying there, looking out at the moon, and thinking how nice it would be for Maude to marry you.”
“Did you consider me at all?” he interposed.
“How you interrupt!” she declared, in exasperation. “You never let me finish.”
“I am dumb.”
“Well, I thought how nice it would be for Maude to marry you. You’d have a baron for a papa-in-law, and an heiress to balance Aunt Mary with. If you went into consumption and had to retreat to Arizona for a term of years, the climate could not ruin her complexion as it would m—most people’s. And she’s so ready to have you that it’s almost pathetic. I can’t imagine anything more awful than to be as ready to marry a man who is’nt at all desirous of so doing, as Maude is of marrying you. But if you would only think about it. I thought and thought about it last night and the longer I thought the more it seemed like such a nice arrangement all around; and then—all of a sudden—do you know I began to wonder if I was philosopher enough to enjoy being matron-of-honor to Maude and really—”
“At the wedding I could have kissed you!” he exclaimed, and suddenly subsided at the look with which she withered his boldness.