The Dominant Dollar Part 5

"Yes; I guess I'll have to admit that. I didn't ask her, though, Steve Armstrong. She suggested gratis--that Harry couldn't afford it. They went into debt to buy furnishings for the house as it was."

"I don't doubt it. History pays even less than chemistry, and the Lord knows--No; I don't doubt it."

"Knows what, Steve?"

"Who knows what?"

"The one you suggested."

"Oh! I guess you caught the inference all right. No need to have put it in the abstract. We professors of the younger set are all in the same boat. We'd all have to go into debt under like circ.u.mstances."

Elice Gleason meditated.

"But Harry's been a full professor now a long time," she commented; "two years longer than you."

"And what difference does that make? He just lives on his salary."

"Is that so? I never thought of it that way. I don't think I ever considered the financial side before at all."

Armstrong looked his approval.

"I dare say not, Elice; and I for one am mighty glad you didn't. Life is cheap enough at best without adding to its cheapness unnecessarily."

The girl seemed scarcely to hear him, missing the argument entirely.

"I suppose, though," she commented reflectively, "when one does think of it, that it'll be rather hard on Margery to scrimp. She's always had everything she wants and isn't used to economizing."

Armstrong sat a moment in thought. He gave his habitual shrug.

"She should have thought of that before the minister came," he dismissed with finality. "It's a trifle late now."

"They've been putting it off for a long time, though," justified the girl, "and probably she thought--one has to cease delaying some time."

"Elice! Elice!" Armstrong laughed banteringly. "I believe you've got the June bug fluttering in your bonnet too. It's contagious this time of year, isn't it?"

"Shame on you, Steve!" The voice was dripping with reproach. "You always will be personal. You know I didn't mean it that way."

"Not a bit, honest now?"

"I say you ought to be ashamed to make fun of me that way."

"But honest--"

"Well," reluctantly, "maybe I did just a bit. We too have been engaged quite a while."

"Almost as long as the Randalls."

"Yes."

The quizzical look left Armstrong's eyes, but he said nothing.

"And I suppose every woman wants a home of her own. It's an instinct. I think I understand Margery."

From out the porch of the Gleason cottage, shaded from the curious by its climbing rose-vines, the girl looked forth at the sputtering electric globe on the corner.

"And, besides, people get to talking and smiling and making it unpleasant for a girl after so long. It was so with Margery. I know, although she never told me. It bothered her."

"You say after so long, Elice. How long?"

"I didn't mean any particular length of time, Steve. There isn't any rule by which you can measure gossip, so far as I know."

"Approximately, then."

"Oh, after a year, I suppose. It's about then that there's a comment or two sandwiched between the red and blue decks at bridge parties."

"And we've been engaged now three years. Do they ever sandwich--"

"How do I know. They don't do it to one's face."

"But Margery--you say they made it uncomfortable for her."

"Steve Armstrong," the voice was intentionally severe, "what possesses you to-night? I can't fancy what put that notion into your head."

"You did yourself," serenely, "just now. I never happened to stumble upon this particular continent before, and I'm intent on exploration and discovery. Honest, do they," he made an all-inclusive gesture, "talk about you and me?"

"I tell you they don't do those things to our faces."

"You're evading the question, girl Elice."

"They're not unpleasant intentionally."

"Still evasion. Out with it. Let's clear the air."

The girl drummed on the arm of her chair, first with one hand, then with the other. At last she looked the questioner fairly in the face.

"Frankly, Steve, they do; and they have for a year. But I don't mind. I didn't intend to say anything to you about it."

The look of the boy vanished from the other's eyes.

"I--see," he commented slowly.

"People are horrid that way, even people otherwise nice," amplified the girl. "As soon as any one they know has an--affair it immediately becomes public property. It's almost as bad as a murder case. The whole thing is tried and settled out of court."

The figure of the man settled down in his chair to the small of his back.

His fingers locked over one knee.

"I suppose it was something of that kind Darley had in mind," he said.

"Darley Roberts? When?"