“Why would I want to be getting married?” she demanded.
“Don’t you?”
“I thought I did—two years ago.”
“You were too young then,” he decided gravely. “But now it is time. You—you’re a living threat, as you are. Don’t you know it?”
“And what would I be threatening, then?”
“The peace of mind of every man who comes near you. You may not know it, Glo, but you are the kind of woman for whom men, ever since the world began, have been throwing everything worth while into the discard; truth, honor, loyalty—anything they had to fling away.”
“Would you just be finding that out, Davie?”
“You—you’re different in some way, Glo; or else I am. What have you been doing to yourself in these two years?”
“What should I be doing? Is a girl to be waiting always for something that’s never going to happen?”
A cold horror seized him, but he tried to shake it off; tried to recall the Gloriana he had grown up with; a frank, outspoken daughter of the people, strong to attract, but also strong to resist. The “town-side” boys had jeered him for companying with John Fallon’s daughter, a “factory-side” girl, but then, as now, he was wont to go his own way when he was convinced that the way was straight and honest. The way had been straight, he told himself, because the girl was straight. But now——