The door-bell rang in confirmation, and Crofts shuffled down the hall. He glanced timidly at Persis, and she nodded her head.
"You can't see them now," Forbes protested; "tell the man not to let them in."
"It wouldn't do any good. Besides, they saw me. Now of all times I must keep up a bold front. Wait in the library, Harvey. I'll get rid of them as soon as I can." He was hardly gone before Alice came running, crying, "Oh, here you are," and seizing the hand that Persis thrust at her absent-mindedly. Stowe Webb seized her other hand and clung to it as Alice rattled on: "We had the narrowest escape! Just as our taxi drew up to your door my awful mother and Winifred drove away—without seeing us!"
"And do you poor children still have to meet in secret, too?" Persis asked with a dreary sympathy.
"Indeed we have to," Webb replied, "and always shall. Her mother won't let me in the house! And I am doing a little better now—two thousand a year. But Alice's mother still calls me a pauper. Our only hope is a runaway marriage. But Alice always remembers what you told her. I wish you could advise her differently now, for we are hopelessly unhappy. We couldn't be more miserable even if we were married."
Alice corroborated this theory. "It's simply terrible the trials we are put to now. But you made it so vivid to me—the other side of it—the sordidness, the poverty, the stairs, the bills; how I should grow plain, and begin to nag; how I should ruin Stowe's career. Oh, why do we women always seem to be getting in the way of the careers of the men we love! Why can't we help them?"
"We can, Alice, we can!" Persis averred, with a sudden energy. "If we begin the right way, if our love is the right sort, if we don't wait too long. Marry him, Alice."
"But you said," Alice reminded her, "that I should miss all the comforts that make life worth while." And Persis answered with a solemnity that was unwonted in her:
"If you don't marry the one you love you miss everything that makes life worth while. If you don't sacrifice everything that love asks, why, love robs you of all your delight in the things you have kept. Your mother will forgive you, Alice. But what if she doesn't? It is better to lack the forgiveness of some one else—of every one else!—than to feel that you can never, never forgive yourself. That is the most horrible thing in life, not to forgive yourself."
"But you talk so differently now!" Alice interposed; and Persis explained it dismally enough: