before supper, I don't believe in that kind of nonsense. And I--I want
nothing. Of course I know my father and mother are poor, and that they
have kept up a sort of position which ranks them among the 'shabby
genteel,'--and I suppose if I don't marry quickly I shall have to do
something for a living----"

She broke off, embarrassed by the keenness of the gaze he fixed upon
her.

"Many good, many beautiful, many delicate women 'do something,' as you
put it, for a living," he said slowly. "But the fight is always fierce,
and the end is sometimes bitter. It is better for a woman that she
should be safeguarded by a husband's care and tenderness than that she
should attempt to face the world alone."

A flashing smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.

"Why, yes, I quite agree with you," she retorted playfully. "But if no
husband come forward, then it cannot be helped!"

He rose, and, pushing away his chair, walked up and down in silence.

She watched him with a sense of growing irritability, and her heart beat
with uncomfortable quickness. Why did he seem to hesitate so long?
Presently he stopped in his slow movement to and fro, and stood looking
down upon her with a fixed intensity which vaguely troubled her.

"It is difficult to advise," he said, "and it is still more difficult to
control. In your case I have no right to do either. I am an old man, and
you are a very young woman. You are beginning your life,--I am ending