“Not as you understand loving, I am afraid. In my own way I love you.”
“I don’t like your way, then,” Nancy said wearily.
“We’re both so poor, little girl,—that’s one thing. If I were free and could overcome my prejudice against matrimony, and could be a little surer of my own heart and its constancy,—even then, don’t you see, practical considerations would and ought to stand in our way. I 256 couldn’t support you, you couldn’t possibly support me.”
“I see,” said Nancy. “Would you marry me If I were rich?” she said slowly.
“I already have one wife,” Collier Pratt smiled. Nancy remembered afterward that he smiled oftener during this interview than at any other. “But if somebody died, and left you a million, she might possibly be disposed of.”
For one moment, perhaps, his fate hung in the balance. Then he took a step forward.
“Kiss me good night, dear,” he said, “and let us end this bitter and fruitless discussion.”
“Kiss you good night,” Nancy cried. “Kiss you good night. Oh! how dare you!—How dare you?” And she struck him twice across his mouth. “I wish I could kill you,” she blazed. “Oh! how dare you,—how dare you?”
“Oh! very well,” said Collier Pratt calmly, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. “If that’s the way you feel—then our pleasant little acquaintanceship is ended. I’ll take my hat and stick and my child—and go.”
“Your child?” Nancy cried aghast. “You wouldn’t take Sheila away from me.”