"Yes, if I must."
"Well, I guess not!" said Archie.
She laughed a little helplessly. "But, Archie, you veto everything I suggest! Really, you're not very helpful. Don't you understand that I've got to earn my living, right at once? I'm unskilled labor. Beggars can't be choosers. You'd suppose nothing was good enough for me!"
"And it isn't!... Gosh!" he said miserably—(she saw that his big hands were shaking)—"The idea makes me right down sick! A little delicate thing like you, out in the scramble with the rest of us—! I know what it is, you see. Bad enough for a fellow, sometimes. I know the things a working girl has to do and stand for. Honest to God, I'd rather see you married!" he groaned.
Unselfish devotion could go no farther, and Joan knew it.
She suddenly found herself on the verge of tears. She was tired out, mind, soul, and body. She would have liked to put her head down on his shoulder and simply cry till she was comforted. It was such a big, broad shoulder, so amply adapted to the bearing of burdens. She could make him happy, too, poor boy! One and all, people seemed to expect nothing of her but marriage—her father, Effie May, Stefan Nikolai, and now Archie. Perhaps they knew best. They were many and she only one. Temptation beset her—or was it inspiration? She did not know....
Meanwhile Archie was elaborating his forlorn idea. "Isn't there somebody who would do?" he urged. "Surely of all the fellows who've been hanging round, there ought to be one decent chap who'd give his head and ears to keep you out of this—to take you away from here himself?"
Joan made her decision.
"I think there is," she said tremulously. "Only—he won't say so."
"The big mutt!" cried Archie—and then paused. Her expression, the significance of her voice, began to penetrate his humility.