We were separated by two men carrying a ladder who drove between us unawares.
“Marion,” I asked when we got together again, “I tell you I want you to marry me.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“We can’t marry—in the street.”
“We could take our chance!”
“I wish you wouldn’t go on talking like this. What is the good?”
She suddenly gave way to gloom. “It’s no good marrying” she said. “One’s only miserable. I’ve seen other girls. When one’s alone one has a little pocket-money anyhow, one can go about a little. But think of being married and no money, and perhaps children—you can’t be sure....”
She poured out this concentrated philosophy of her class and type in jerky uncompleted sentences, with knitted brows, with discontented eyes towards the westward glow—forgetful, it seemed, for a moment even of me.
“Look here, Marion,” I said abruptly, “what would you marry on?”