"I don't see how you make that out."
Myra's heart sank within her. It hurt her immeasurably to be driven to plead her own cause, but the money-fact was inexorable; and the look in Bartrow's eyes was her warrant when she dared to read it.
"Oh, can't you see?" The words wrought themselves into a plea, though she strove to say them dispassionately. "If it touch your self-respect ever so little, the sacrifice is all yours."
That point of view was quite new to Bartrow. He took time to think it out, but when the truth clinched itself he went straight to the mark.
"I never saw that side of it before—don't quite see it now. But if you do, that's different. It's you, little woman; and I do love you—you, yourself, and not your money. I wish I could go on and say the rest of it, but I can't. Will you take me for better or for worse—with an even chance that it's going to be all worse and no better?"
Her eyes filled with quick tears, and her voice was tremulous. "It would serve you right if I should say no; you've fairly made me beg you to ask me!"
Her hand was on the arm of the chair, and he possessed himself of it and raised it to his lips with gentle reverence.
"You'll have to begin making allowances for me right at the start," he said humbly. "When I make any bad breaks you must remember it's because I don't know any better, and that away down deep under it all I love you well enough to—to go to jail for you. Will you wait for me while I skirmish around and try to get on my feet again?"
"No"—with sweet petulance.