"Yessir," and almost instinctively she put up her lips for a good-night kiss. He brushed them hastily with his. She went out softly, drying her eyes. His own grew moist—he was touched by the pathos of her implicit trust. The soft warmth of her lips still thrilled him. How sweet and loving she was! The little dialogue rang in his brain.
"Can't you marry me, then?"
"You know it is impossible."
"Why is it impossible?"
"Because——"
"Because what?" an audacious voice whispered. Why should he not? He stilled the voice, but it refused to be silent—was obdurate, insistent, like Mary Ann herself. "Because—oh, because of a hundred things," he told it. "Because she is no fit mate for me—because she would degrade me, make me ridiculous—an unfortunate fortune-hunter, the butt of the witlings. How could I take her about as my wife? How could she receive my friends? For a housekeeper—a good, loving housekeeper—she is perfection, but for a wife—my wife—the companion of my soul—impossible!"
"Why is it impossible?" repeated the voice, catching up the cue. And then, from that point, the dialogue began afresh.
"Because this, and because that, and because the other—in short, because
I am Lancelot and she is merely Mary Ann."
"But she is not merely Mary Ann any longer," urged the voice.
"Yes, for all her money, she is merely Mary Ann. And am I to sell myself for her money—I who have stood out so nobly, so high-mindedly, through all these years of privation and struggle! And her money is all in dollars. Pah! I smell the oil. Struck ile! Of all things in the world, her brother should just go and strike ile!" A great shudder traversed his form. "Everything seems to have been arranged out of pure cussedness, just to spite me. She would have been happier without the money, poor child—without the money, but with me. What will she do with all her riches? She will only be wretched—like me."