He said in a more subdued voice: “After you are firmly established in your profession, we can think about marriage, can’t we?”
“I always think about it.... I often wonder if you can wait.”
“I suppose that I must.... How long, Eris?”
“I don’t know.... Darling! I don’t know——”
Suddenly she took his head in her arms and kissed him passionately, strained him to her convulsively.
“I don’t want you to have a living corpse for a wife,” she said tremulously. “That’s what I’d be if I stopped work now. I’d be a dead, inert, mindless thing. I couldn’t love. Let us go on this way. I must have my freedom.... I’ll come to you when I’m ready, Barry.... There’ll come a time when I’ll have to have you to go on at all. I’ll not be able to work without you.... There’ll come such a time.... Then, if I don’t have you, I shall be unable to work at all.... Work will stop. I know it.... If only you will understand....”
It seemed that he did understand. He said he did, anyway. But he also wanted their engagement to be understood. And she promised him to consult his lawyer as soon as work permitted and find out what could be done to eliminate from her life the last traces of Eddie Carter, alias E. Stuart Graydon.
For Eris never expected to lay eyes again upon the nimble Mr. Graydon.
But it is the unexpected that usually happens, particularly if it’s disagreeable.