Slowly her shivering died away. He continued to hold her, but he was no longer puzzled. He knew now for what she had come.
“My mother wanted me to marry Charley Hapgood,” she announced.
“Charley Hapgood, that fellow who speaks always in platitudes?” Martin groaned. Then he added, “And now, I suppose, your mother wants you to marry me.”
He did not put it in the form of a question. He stated it as a certitude, and before his eyes began to dance the rows of figures of his royalties.
“She will not object, I know that much,” Ruth said.
“She considers me quite eligible?”
Ruth nodded.
“And yet I am not a bit more eligible now than I was when she broke our engagement,” he meditated. “I haven’t changed any. I’m the same Martin Eden, though for that matter I’m a bit worse—I smoke now. Don’t you smell my breath?”
In reply she pressed her open fingers against his lips, placed them graciously and playfully, and in expectancy of the kiss that of old had always been a consequence. But there was no caressing answer of Martin’s lips. He waited until the fingers were removed and then went on.
“I am not changed. I haven’t got a job. I’m not looking for a job. Furthermore, I am not going to look for a job. And I still believe that Herbert Spencer is a great and noble man and that Judge Blount is an unmitigated ass. I had dinner with him the other night, so I ought to know.”