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“But I can—except for a few hours. Dick, you say I’m different. Let me stay different!”

“You’ll always be that. Let’s look at it sensibly. Dick Cunningham’s wife earning her living—why, it’s a joke!”

“Every one would know it’s not a question of money.”

“Then why do it? Give some one else a chance—some one who needs it.”

“But it’s my life,” she repeated desperately. “And now, when success has just come—”

“You said—‘before all the world’ awhile ago.”

“Yes—and I meant it. I do love you, before everything. You know that. You’ve swept me off my feet. I can’t reason.” And then her hands came together and she cried out: “Oh, why did this have to happen—why?”

“It had to happen,” he repeated huskily.

“Why couldn’t you have cared for some one in your own set?”

“I want you.”