"Do? Why, nothing. Tell him the same thing, of course, pack my suit-case,
and start back to Hamstead as soon as I had met the men I came to see on
business."

"Oh, Austin, how can you talk so! I don't believe you really want me,
after all!"

"Don't you?" he asked in an absolutely expressionless voice, and pushing
back his chair he walked over to the window, turning his back on her
completely.

She was beside him in an instant, promising to do whatever he wished and
begging his forgiveness. But it was so long before he answered her, or
even looked at her, that she knew that for the second time that day she
had wounded him almost beyond endurance.

"If you ever say that to me again, no power on earth will make me marry
you," he said, in a voice that was not in the least threatening, but so
decisive that there could be no doubt that he meant what he said; "and
we've got to think up some way of getting along together without
quarrelling all the time unless you have your own way about everything,
whether it's fair that you should or not. Now, tell me what you wanted
to talk to me about, and we'll try to do better--those troublesome
details you mentioned before you left the farm? Perhaps I can straighten
out some of them for you, if you'll only let me."

"The first one is--money."

"I thought so. It's a rather large obstacle, I admit. But things are not