"Only my father is living, and I have quarrelled with him."
"Can't you make it up?"
"No," she said sharply and emphatically. "I could never return to my father. There is no room for me now that he has married again. I would sooner sell matches at a street corner than go back to what I have left."
"So that's it, is it?" said Mercer. He was looking at her very attentively with his brows drawn down. "You are not happy at home, so you are plunging into matrimony to get away from it all."
"We have been engaged for three years," she protested, flushing.
"You said that before," he remarked. "It seems to be your only argument, and a confoundedly shaky one at that."
She laughed rather unsteadily.
"You are not very encouraging."
"No," said Mercer.
He was still looking at her somewhat sternly. Involuntarily almost she avoided his eyes.