Dic had resolved, upon hearing Rita's first petition concerning the New York trip, that he would be adamant. His resolution to go was built upon the rock of expediency. It was best for him, best for Rita, that he should go, and he had no respect for a poor, weak man who would permit a woman to coax him from a clearly proper course. She should never coax him out of doing that which was best for them both.
"We'll discuss it at another time," he answered evasively, as he tried to turn her face up toward him. But her face would not be turned, and while she hid it on his breast she pushed his away, and said:—
"No, we'll discuss it now. You must promise me that you will not go. If you do not, I shall not like you, and you shall not—" She did not finish the sentence, and Dic asked gently:—
"I shall not—what, Rita?"
"Anything," came the enlightening response from the face hidden on his breast. "Besides, you will break my heart, and if you go, I'll know you don't care for me. I'll know you have been deceiving me." Then the face came up, and the great brown eyes looked pleadingly into his. "Dic, I've leaned on you so long—ever since I was a child—that I have no strength of my own; but now that I have given myself up to you, I—I cannot stand alone, even for a day. If you go away from me now, it will break my heart. I tell you it will."
Dic felt her tears upon his hand, and soon he heard soft sobs and felt their gentle convulsions within her breast. Of course the result was inevitable; the combatants were so unevenly matched. Woman's tears are the most potent resolvent know to chemistry. They will dissolve rocks of resolution, and Dic's resolutions, while big with intent, were small in flintiness, though he had thought well of them at the time they were formed. He could not endure the pain inflicted by Rita's tears. He had not learned how easy and useful tears are to women. They burned him.
"Please, Rita, please don't cry," he pleaded.
The tears, while they came readily and without pain, were honest; at any rate, the girl being so young, they were not deliberately intended to be useful. They were a part of her instinct of self-preservation.
"Don't cry, please, Rita. Your tears hurt me."
"Then promise me you won't go to New York." I fear there is no getting away entirely from the theory of utility. With evident intent to crowd the battle upon a wavering foe, the tears came fast and furious.