"Of course under any circumstances I shall see you are well provided for."

Virginia made a gesture of dissent.

"Oh, no!" she cried.

"You mean that you wouldn't take-any allowance?"

"Yes! I came to you with nothing—that is what I'll take away."

"Now do be a sensible little woman," he said coaxingly. "If you won't take anything from me, where are you to go, what are you to do?"

"You seem to forget that I managed to live before I met you!"

"You would try to do as you did then?"

"Why not?"

"Because it's impossible—absolutely impossible."