"If you'll tell me how to help it, I shall be grateful," he retorted as gaily as if her eyes had not filled with tears.
"Swear it!"
"I swear it. Now, are you satisfied?"
"I don't believe it. I'll never believe that you love me as much as I love you. Nobody could."
In his heart he agreed with her. That Gabriella loved him more than he loved her was a fact to which he was easily reconciled. He loved her quite as much as he could love anybody except himself and be comfortable, and if she demanded more, she merely proved herself to be an unreasonable person. Women did love more than men, he supposed, but what else were they here for? During the six months when he had thought that she belonged to another, she had, he told himself, almost driven him out of his mind; but possession once assured, he had speedily recovered his health and his sanity. Her worship flattered him, and in this flattery she had, perhaps, her strongest hold on his heart. Nothing in his engagement had pleased him more than the readiness with which she had given up her work at his request. He abhorred independence in a wife; and Gabriella's immediate and unresisting acquiescence in his desire appeared to him to establish the fact of her essential and inherent femininity. Had not all laws, as well as all religions, proclaimed that woman should be content to lay down not only her life but her very identity for love; and that Gabriella was womanly to the core of her nature, in spite of her work in Brandywine's millinery department, it was impossible to doubt while he kissed her. There were times, indeed, when the exaltation of Gabriella's womanliness seemed to have left her without a will of her own; when, in a divine submission to love, she appeared to exist only for the laudable purpose of making her lover happy.
"I'd do anything on earth for you, Gabriella," said George suddenly. "I wonder if you would make a sacrifice for me if I asked it?" From his face as he looked down on her it was evident that he was not speaking from impulse, but that he had seized an opportune moment.
"You know I would, George. I'd give up the whole world for you. I'd beg my bread with you by the roadside."
"Well, it isn't so bad as that, darling—it's only about your mother coming to us so soon. I've had a letter from home, and it seems that father has had losses and can't help me out as he intended to do. He's always either losing or making piles of money, so don't bother your precious head about that. In six months he'll probably be making piles again, but, in the meantime, mother suggests that we should postpone taking a house, and come and live with her for a few months."
"I'd rather live on your income, George, no matter how small it is. I'm an awfully good manager, and you'd be surprised to see how far I can make a little money go. Why can't we take an apartment somewhere in an inexpensive neighbourhood—one just big enough for mother and you and me?"
"We couldn't live half so well in the first place, and, besides, I'd hate like the devil to see you working yourself to death and losing your looks. That's just exactly what Patty is doing. She was the family's greatest investment, you know. Everything we had for years was spent on her because she was such a ripping beauty, and mother set her heart on her marrying nothing less than a duke. So we sent her abroad to be educated and squandered a fortune on her clothes, and then, just as mother was gloating over her triumphs, the very day after the Duke of Toxbridge proposed to her, Patty walked out one morning and married Billy King at the Little Church Around the Corner. Billy, of course, hasn't a cent to his name except what he makes painting blue pictures, and that's precious little. They're up on the West Side now, living in four rooms with neighbours who fry onions at nine o'clock in the morning next door to them, and half the time Patty hasn't even a maid, I believe, and has to do her work with the help of a charwoman."