"There is no harmony at all without it," remarked the bachelor shortly. "But how on earth can you make a poem out of matrimony?"

"Some people do," replied the widow loftily.

"On paper!" sneered the bachelor. "On paper they make poems of death and babies and railroad accidents and health foods. But in real life matrimony isn't a poem; it's more like a declaration of war, or an itemized expense account, or a census report, or a cold business proposition."

The widow bit the end of her pencil and laid aside her paper. If the bachelor could have caught a glimpse of her eyes beneath the lowered lashes he might not have gone on; but he was studying the sky through the maple leaves.[62]

[62]

"It's a beautiful business proposition," he added. "A magnificent money making scheme, a——"

The bachelor's eyes had dropped to the widow's and he stopped short.

"Go on," she remarked in a cold, sweet voice that trickled down his back.

"Oh, well," he protested lamely, "when you marry for money you generally get it, don't you? But when you marry for love—it's like putting your last dollar on a long shot."

"If you mean there's a delightful uncertainty about it?" began the widow.

"There's nothing half so delightful," declared the bachelor, "as betting on a sure thing. Now, the man or woman who marries for money——"[63]

[63]

"Earns it," broke in the widow fervently. "Earns it by the sweat of the brow. The man who marries a woman for her money is a white slave, a bond servant, a travesty on manhood. For every dollar he receives he gives a full equivalent in self-respect and independence, and all the things dearest to a real man."

"A real man," remarked the bachelor, taking out his pipe and lighting it, "wouldn't marry a woman for her money. It's woman to whom marriage presents the alluring financial prospect."

"Oh, I don't know," responded the widow, crossing her arms behind her head and leaning thoughtfully against the tree at her back. "In these days of typewriting and stenography and manicuring and trained[64] nursing, matrimony 

 Prev. P 23/65 next