"_You_ are _my_ world," he said. "The only world I know. The only world
I want to know."

He walked to the fireplace and leaned his elbows on the mantel, and
buried his head in his hands. But that his distress might not hurt
Jeanne, he turned and, to give her courage, smiled.

"If you are going to devote yourself to the World," he asked, "and not
to any one person, why can't I sort of trail along? Why need you leave
me and go with--with some one else?"

"For the work I hope to do," answered Jeanne, "you and I are not suited.
But Proctor and I are suited. He says he never met a woman who
understands him as I do."

"Hell!" said Jimmie. After that he did not speak for some time. Then he
asked roughly:

"He's going to marry you, of course?"

Jeanne flushed crimson.

"Of course!" she retorted. Her blush looked like indignation, and so
Jimmie construed it, but it was the blush of embarrassment. For Maddox
considered the ceremony of marriage an ignoble and barbaric bond. It
degraded the woman, he declared, in making her a slave, and the man in
that he accepted such a sacrifice. Jeanne had not argued with him. Until
she were free, to discuss it with him seemed indecent. But in her own
mind there was no doubt. If she were to be the helpmate of Proctor