"Marion," I said, "this isn't a trifling matter to me. I love you; I
would die to get you.... Don't you care?"
"But what is the good?"
"You don't care," I cried. "You don't care a rap!"
"You know I care," she answered. "If I didn't--If I didn't like you very
much, should I let you come and meet me--go about with you?"
"Well then," I said, "promise to marry me!"
"If I do, what difference will it make?"
We were separated by two men carrying a ladder who drove between us
unawares.
"Marion," I asked when we got together again, "I tell you I want you to
marry me."
"We can't."
"Why not?"
"We can't marry--in the street."
"We could take our chance!"
"I wish you wouldn't go on talking like this. What is the good?"
She suddenly gave way to gloom. "It's no good marrying" she said. "One's
only miserable. I've seen other girls. When one's alone one has a little
pocket-money anyhow, one can go about a little. But think of being
married and no money, and perhaps children--you can't be sure...."
She poured out this concentrated philosophy of her class and type in
jerky uncompleted sentences, with knitted brows, with discontented eyes
towards the westward glow--forgetful, it seemed, for a moment even of
me.
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