"Would you have to go to prison if you stayed?" She asked this with a breathless tensity.
"I'm not going to beg father to help me out," he said, determinedly. "He said he wouldn't, and he'll be spared the chance. He won't mind that; nobody will care! Nobody! What does anybody care what I do!"
"Now you're thinking of Mamie!" she cried. "I can always tell. Whenever you don't talk naturally you're thinking of her!"
He poured down the last of the coffee, growing red to the tips of his ears. "Ariel," he said, "if I ever come back—"
"Wait," she interrupted. "Would you have to go to prison right away if they caught you?"
"Oh, it isn't that," he laughed, sadly. "But I'm going to clear out. I'm not going to take any chances. I want to see other parts of the world, other kinds of people. I might have gone, anyhow, soon, even if it hadn't been for last night. Don't you ever feel that way?"
"You know I do," she said. "I've told you—how often! But, Joe, Joe,—you haven't any MONEY! You've got to have money to LIVE!"
"You needn't worry about that," returned the master of seven dollars, genially. "I've saved enough to take care of me for a LONG time."
"Joe, PLEASE! I know it isn't so. If you could wait just a little while—only a few weeks,—only a FEW, Joe—"
"What for?"