“I believe in marriage--it’s the only decent way to live, but I wouldn’t care for my wife the way he does; my regard wouldn’t have that self-sacrifice in it. I’d want a woman to minister to my comfort, put mustard plasters on me when I was sick.” “But the wife. What would she get in return?” “My name, for the sake of which I would sacrifice the most precious gift that could come into a man’s life--a woman whom I could have loved and by whom I could have been loved.” “A pretty theory, but, ye gods! the practice.” Briarley laid down his napkin and leaned back from the table, staring at the other contemplatively. “Andrews, for a man of your logic, you are confoundedly disappointing. I’d have thought you’d have very fantastic ideals of marriage--of the woman that was to make your home. You claim that your philosophy is in straight lines. There are two ways of making a straight line, horizontal and perpendicular, then they cross. You think it is infamous to marry for money, and you have tabooed your pet hobby,” he said with an ironical curl of the lip. “Five years ago, before you had got your bearings, you might have humored such a whimsical freak of that individuality of yours, but now you would struggle devilishly before you would spoil your life.” “I have theories, not just to talk about, but to live by. My philosophy is extraordinarily simple. You can’t have the pie and eat it too.” With a reflective survey of his friend, Briarley commenced with a kind of confidential frankness. “If you are to make marriage a commodity, why not be brutally practical? You are a very decent sort of a chap, and fame, for you, is on the up grade. You could marry money. A poor married man might as well be a street-car mule and be done with it. Talk about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go to heaven, why it’s easier for a whole drove of them to get through than for man to get anywhere without money.” “You are very good to care anything about it, but I have quite decided in my mind what I shall do with that problem,” Glenn announced with resolute calmness. The other lit a cigar, and leaned back in comfort. “I’ll swear you provoke me, and I don’t know why I should give a hang. Self-will sometimes degenerates--then it is stubbornness--but I suppose every fellow has a right to sign his own death warrant if he chooses, and failure is a death warrant.” “There are some things you know and some that you don’t know.” “And a devilish lot that nobody will ever know,” said Briarley, as he flicked the ashes from his cigar. There was a tender spot in his iron heart for Glenn Andrews. He was too noble, too talented, to lose in sacrifice the possibilities of so brilliant a future. CHAPTER X.