"Her career will be Jerry Paxton! Selfish, if you like, but that is the only way I can ever get away with matrimony. I don't like marriage, I hate being tied down, you know how I hate it. If I married a woman with a career of her own, with the independence and egotism which come to women with careers, why-- Lord, Bobs, I'd end by murdering her!" "You're the most selfish human being in the world, Jerry!" "No, I'm like the majority of men, only I say it out and the rest keep it dark." "But you can't pick out the person you intend to love, Jerry. It doesn't happen that way. Love gets you, torments you, numbs your brain, upsets your mind." "He won't get me, Bobs. I'm on guard." "Some of us go on guard too late, Jerry." "Look here, old lady, it isn't like you to talk this sort of stuff. Buck up! Love isn't life; it's just one incident of it. Work is the real thing, you and I both know that, and matrimony plays the devil with an artist's work, so it's not for us." "Jerry, you--you beast!" she choked, and ran out of the room. He stood where she left him, startled, sorry, angry. Bobs, his old pal, his fellow worker; he loved her dearly. He would not hurt her for the world, nor would he marry her. Must he always be in this tumult, this state of unrest? What was there in him which gave all the women he knew the idea of his pursuit of them? How was he to guard against this misunderstanding of his motives? A portrait painter could not manage a love affair with every woman who sat for him. This was the culminating moment of his weeks of loneliness, his discouragement about his work, his fury at having constantly to extricate himself from tender situations which he did not make. Bobs's revelation made him feel a brute, a cad, but he could not marry Bobs; he did not want to. How could he protect himself from himself? With an apologetic tap at the door, Jane entered. "Sorry, I forgot my bag," she said. He confronted her squarely, looked her in the eyes and spoke, almost as if driven by some power not himself. "Miss Jane Judd," he said earnestly, "will you marry me?" CHAPTER XI Jane stood, perfectly still, facing him for a good second. "What did you say?" "I am at the mercy of things, I need a wife. I want you," he answered incoherently. "Why do you want me?" "Because you are able and quiet, because you're work atmosphere, because you are the kind I need." "You know nothing about me, Mr. Paxton," she said quietly. "Are you married?" "No. I mean you know nothing about my thoughts, my interests, my views of life." "I don't care what your views of life are. I know you don't talk about them all the time. I've known you for five years, and I ask you to marry me." "You think I can protect you from the other women; is that it?" "I didn't mean to say----" "Let us be quite frank about it." "That's partly it," he admitted. "How can I get anything done----"