When she saw what that did to him, how much it hurt him, she was overcome with remorse.
“Oh, but it doesn’t matter—now!” she said. “Not now—when I have you. Really and truly, Joe, I don’t care a bit!”
Her anxiety to reassure him, to send him away happy, touched Hardy almost beyond endurance. He had always been aware of something wistful, something a little sorrowful about her, like a shadow over her clear beauty. She had been the dearer to him for that. She was a thousand times dearer to him now because she was sad, and must look to him for her happiness. He meant to make her happy—at any cost!
II
Those words, “at any cost,” did not come consciously into Hardy’s mind. He didn’t really believe that happiness cost anything—or love, either. You found them, suddenly, on your way through life, and of course you had a right to keep what you found.
He did see difficulties, though. His prospects were good, but in his immediate present there were many things that troubled him.
His chief trouble was one which young fellows of twenty-three who want to get married have encountered before. It was money. His salary of twenty-five hundred a year was more than he needed for his own wants, and he had done a very sensible thing—he had begun buying stock in the company that employed him, turning in ten dollars of his salary every week for this purpose. He had four hundred dollars saved in that way, but no one ever repented a folly more heartily than young Hardy now regretted his prudence.
He couldn’t touch that money. He knew very well that one of Mr. Plummer’s strongest reasons for promoting him was that infernal stock he was buying. If he were to sell it, or to stop his payments, Mr. Plummer would want to know why, and Hardy’s prospects would be in jeopardy. He couldn’t marry without those prospects, nor could he very well get married without the money.
Well, any wise and experienced person could solve that difficulty for him. He must wait. Even Edith, who was neither wise nor experienced, told him that. They were having lunch together a few days after their great discovery of happiness, and Hardy had been explaining the situation in detail.
“We’ll have to wait,” said Edith. “Anyhow—”