She turned her eyes again to the sky.

“What has money to do with the stars?” she asked.

“Do you think a man in my position has any right to ask a woman to marry him?”

“What has your position to do with it?” she asked.

“It has a lot if the woman wants five times what I’m earning,” he answered.

She gave a little startled cry. The stars swam before her.

“Oh!” she gasped. “You mean––you mean you’re thinking of some one like––like that?”

189

“Yes,” he answered.

He had a vague notion this was not the sort of thing one ordinarily discussed with another woman. But Miss Winthrop was different from other women: she had both experience and common sense.