"You really have enjoyed it?" He was cleaning the last of the dishes with snow, and packing them away. "Do you know," he said, cautiously, "I always used to feel that a girl—you say you aren't in society, but I mean a girl like you—I used to think it was impossible to play with such a girl unless a man was rich, which I excessively am not, with my little money tied up in the Touricar. Yet here we have an all-day party, and it costs less than three really good seats at the theater."
"I know. Phil is always saying that he is too poor to have a good time, and yet his grandmother left him fifteen thousand dollars capital in his own right, besides his allowance from his father and his salary from the law firm; and he infuriates me sometimes—aside from the tactlessness of the thing—by quite plainly suggesting that I'm so empty-headed that I won't enjoy going out with him unless he spends a lot of money and makes waiters and ushers obsequious. There are lots of my friends who think that way, both the girls and the men. They never seem to realize that if they were just human beings, as you and I have been to-day, and not hide-bound members of the dance-and-tea league, they could beat that beastly artificial old city.... Phil once told me that no man—mind you, no one at all—could possibly marry on less than fifteen thousand dollars a year. Simply proved it beyond a question."
"That lets me out."
"Phil said that no one could possibly live on the West Side—of course the fact that he and I are both living on the West Side doesn't count—and the cheapest good apartments near Fifth Avenue cost four thousand dollars a year. And then one can't possibly get along with less than two cars and four maids and a chauffeur. Can't be done!"
"He's right. Fawncy! Only three maids. Might as well be dead."
The pack was ready, now; he was swinging it to his back and preparing to stamp out the fire. But he dropped his burden and faced her in the low firelight. "Ruth, you won't make up your mind to marry Phil till you're sure, will you? You'll play with me awhile, won't you? Can't we explore a few more——"
She laughed nervously, trying to look at him. "As I said, Phil won't condescend to consider poor me till he has his fifteen thousand dollars a year, and that won't be for some time, I think, considering he is too well-bred to work hard."
"But seriously, you will——Oh, I don't know how to put it. You will let me be your playmate, even as much as Phil is, while we're still——"
"Carl, I've never played as much with any one as with you. You make most of the men I know seem very unenterprising. It frightens me. Perhaps I oughtn't to let you jump the fence so easily."
"You won't let Phil lock you up for a while?"