"She may have to, Nolan," said Eileen gently. "One never knows what may happen after marriage. Getting married is no laughing matter, and Eveley should be prepared for any exigency." "But, Eileen, she won't need her twenty-five hundred to get married. No decent fellow would marry a girl unless he could support her, and do it well, even luxuriously. You don't suppose I would let my wife spend her twenty-five hundred--" "If you mean me, I shall do whatever I like with my own money when I get married," said Eveley quickly. "My husband will have nothing to say about it. You needn't think for one minute--" "I am not your husband, am I? I haven't exactly proposed to you yet, have I?" Eveley swallowed hard. "Certainly not. And probably never will. By the time you get around to it, getting married will be out of date, and none of the best people doing it any more." "You may not have asked her, Nolan," said Eileen evenly. "And that is your business, of course. She will probably turn you down when you do ask her, just as she does everybody else. But--" "Who has been asking her now?" he cried, with jealous interest. "But while we are on the subject, I hope you will permit me to say that I think your principles are all wrong, and even dangerous. You think a man should wait a thousand years until he can keep a wife like a pet dog, on a cushion with a pink ribbon around her neck--" "The dog's neck, or the wife's?" "The dog's--no, the wife's--both of them," she decided at last, with never a ruffle. "You want to wait until she is tired of loving, and too old to have a good time, and worn out with work. It isn't right. It is not fair. It is unjust both to yourself, and to Eve--to the girl." "But, my dear child," he said. Eileen was three years older than Nolan; but being a lawyer he called all women "child." "My dear child, do you realize that my salary is eighteen hundred a year, and I get only a few hundred dollars in fees. Think of the cost of food these days, and of clothes, and amusements, to say nothing of rent! Do you think I would allow Eve--my wife, to go without the sweet things of--" "You needn't bring me in," said Eveley loftily. "I have never accepted you, have I?" "No, not exactly, I suppose, but--" "Eveley," said Miriam, suddenly sitting erect on the couch. "I have it." "Sounds like the measles," said Kitty. "I mean I know what to do with the money. Listen, dear. You do not want to go on slaving in an office until you are old and ugly. And Nolan is quite right, you certainly can not marry a grubby clerk in a law office." Nolan laughed at that, but Eveley sat up very straight indeed and fairly glowered at her unconscious friend on the couch.