“Hum!” I says, “I presume likely it's fair to suppose that this break with the old gent is for good?”
He didn't answer, but he didn't need to; the look on his face was enough.
“Yes,” says I. “Well, it's likewise to be supposed that the idea—the eventual idea—is marriage, straight marriage, hey?”
He jumped out of his chair. “Why, damn you!” he says. “I'll—”
“All right. Set down and be nice. I was fairly sure of my soundings, but it don't do no harm to heave the lead. I ask your pardon. Well, what you going to support a wife on—her kind of a wife? A summer waiter's job at twenty a month?”
He set down, but he looked more troubled than ever. I was sorry for him; I couldn't help liking the boy.
“Suppose she keeps her word and goes away,” says I. “What then?”
“I'll go after her.”
“Suppose she still sticks to her principles and won't have you? Where'll you go, then?”
“To the hereafter,” says he, naming the station at the end of the route.