Ethel Mason laughed outright. "You're more business-like than the others," she said mockingly, "and yet haven't you forgotten something else? Sometimes, you know, just a word or so, about—love."
Gordon shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't forget it," he said, "I'd have put it in if I'd thought you expected it; glad to, really, because I do it rather well. But what's the use? You know I've got all the feeling for you that sex has for sex; that goes without saying; you've seen it in a hundred ways; and in addition I know that together we can go a hundred times as far as we'll ever get separately. But beyond that—the dying for you, and shedding my heart's blood, and all that—why, these days, that's a little bit out of date."
The girl gazed at him with an expression hard to fathom. "It's not very flattering," she suggested.
Gordon made a little impatient gesture. "Oh, come," he said, "I'm perfectly frank. Why can't you be so, too? Does the woman marry just for love? Doesn't the woman want to feel passion first? Or, if she isn't that kind, doesn't she figure what she's getting in return for herself? Dollars and cents, these days. I say again, story-book love's gone by."
The girl shook her head. "You're talking for the city woman," she said, "who's got so civilized she's lost the instinct every woman once had. With a woman, unless she stifles it till it's dead, there's one thing comes ahead of everything else, and that's to be protected, cared for, guarded, to be safe. Perhaps it isn't quite love, but it's pretty nearly the same thing. Somebody stronger to lean on, some one in time of danger who won't fail her. That's what comes first."
Gordon gazed at her with real surprise. Then, without hesitation, he nodded. "You're right," he said, "and that I can give you, too. Will you marry me, Ethel?"
The girl did not answer; the long silence seeming in no way to embarrass her. At last, with a little sigh, she looked up at him.
"I will be frank with you," she said, "it's so hard to know what to do. Jack was here to-night before you came, and he asked me the same question you're asking now. Jack's rough, and he isn't educated, but he's big and strong, and I know he thinks a lot of me, and, besides, he's really a man."
Gordon, with the skill not to provoke opposition, nodded assent. "You're right," he said with conviction, "no one thinks more of Jack than I do. But, Ethel, without flattery, you're a woman in a thousand—in looks, in charm, in every way. And Jack—it isn't his fault—Jack is rough and uneducated, and it's too late to change him now. And, with all his good qualities, you'd never be happy with him all your life through. You couldn't, Ethel. Think what it would mean to live your life here on the mountain, no friends, no interests, nothing but life with Jack and the mine. No, we only live once, and it's our duty to make the most of it. And think of the other side of the picture. Wealth, social position, everything you could desire. I'm not a man of great wealth yet, but let me swing the mine the way I want to, and I'll be a millionaire ten times over. Think of it, Ethel. Your city house, your country place, servants, horses, motors, around the world in a steam yacht; we'd get out of life what only a chosen few can get. Say you'll marry me, Ethel, and you'll never live to regret it, so help me God."
There was a silence even longer than before. Then the girl rose and began to pace the room with quick, nervous steps.