He cried out against her self-portrait as a libel. "Oh, Persis, don't tell me that you are mercenary—a woman with a big heart like yours."
"I'm not mercenary exactly; I loathe money as money, but I like nice things. I have to have them. I'm trying to be honest with myself and with you—in time—before it's too late. It's hard; but I didn't arrange the world, did I? I didn't choose my own soul, did I? But I've got to get along with what was given me, haven't I? I tell you I'd ruin your life, Harvey. You'd divorce me in a year."
"Don't talk like that, or you will ruin your own life! There's a big tragedy in store for you, Persis, unless you—"
She was so tortured with disillusion and with the death of her first romance that she grew very hard.
"Well, so long as it isn't the tragedy of being unable to pay my bills and of eating my own cooking I can stand it. I'd rather be unhappy than shabby. But it's growing late; we must get back."
He aided her to her feet, untied the horses, and offered her his hand for a mounting-block. But she said:
"We can walk quicker here than we can ride." Taking her bridle in her arm, she set out swiftly. She seemed once more to be running away from something—a shadow of poverty, no doubt. He felt unspeakably sorry for her. Again he was about to offer her back her heart when an abrupt light broke over her face. She paused, laughed, turned to him.
"What a fool I am! My father set my sister up in business as a British peeress and bought her her husband and settled a whacking dower on her. He can do the same for me and keep the money in this country—and get me a real husband. He could give me enough for us both to live on comfortably."
"I reckon I could hardly accept that arrangement," Forbes said, as gently as he might.
"You see!" she cried out. "You expect me to murder my pride and accept poverty, but you won't accept wealth because you must keep your pride. You couldn't object to my having the money to spend on myself, could you?"