"I never 'sposed I'd marry a real gentleman!" she cried.
Her shallow delight in marrying above her station was too pathetic to be offensive. I was somehow so moved by it that I turned away to hide my face from her; but she caught my hand and drew me back. Then she peered at me closely.
"You don't like it," she said excitedly. "You won't try to stop him?"
"No," I answered. "I think he ought to do it for the sake of his child."
She dropped her hold, and a curious look came into her face.
"That's what he said. Yer don't either of yer seem to count me for much."
I was silent, convicted to the soul that I had not counted her for much. I had accepted Tom's decision as right, not for the sake of this broken girl-mother, this castaway doomed to shame from her cradle, but for the sake purely of the baby that I was to take. It came over me how I might have been influenced too much by the selfish thought that it would be intolerable for me to have the child unless it had been as far as might be legitimatized by this marriage. I flushed with shame, and without knowing exactly what I was doing I bent over and kissed her.
"It is you he marries," I said.
Her tears sprang instantly, tears, I believe, of pure happiness.
"You're real good," she murmured, and then closed her eyes, whether from weakness or to conceal her emotion I could not be sure.