“Come here, please.” He hesitated only briefly; something new in her to-night warned him that it would be unwise to gainsay her.
“Wilton, I am being talked about—too much. Talk does things, after awhile. When is this going to end?” Her voice was strained with her effort to control herself.
“What?” His face was turned from her.
“When can I go to my aunt and tell her that you have asked me to marry you? She persecutes me about it.”
“When you can answer your aunt’s first question—‘what are you and your husband going to live on?’” he replied glumly.
“Oh, the same old story. I’m sick of it. When a man loves he doesn’t think of money.”
Her tone cut into him. Her contempt was not easy to bear.
“I do love you,” he asserted hotly, “but how could I support you? I’ve never worked. I can’t earn a round sum at anything. But for cousin Hibbert Mearely’s little legacy, I’d have been on the parish long ago. You and I can’t live any life but this. We’re not pioneer stuff. If we eloped to the swamps, the gnats would eat us—that’s all.”
“Don’t talk like that! It sounds so cowardly. You must think of me. I can’t face any more talk, and Aunt Emma’s sneers....”
“I’ve been thinking of that. Mabel, we must face facts squarely.”