“No, I don’t want you,” confessed he, frankly. “I don’t know what on earth I’m going to do with you. How can you break with your father and everybody and go tracking off into poverty with me?” “As for that,” began she, “I’ve got something of my own, and----” She stopped short in horror. What was she saying? Who was talking out of her mouth and with her voice? She covered her face with her hands. “I don’t mean it--I’m mad--crazy!” And she was in his arms, with him caressing her hair. “You don’t want me,” he said gently, “and I don’t want you. But it looks as if we’d got to--doesn’t it, Ellen?” If there had been any abbreviation of her name that she detested more than any and all others, it had been Ellen. Yet now--in this absurd, lunatic dream she was having, she liked Ellen--in his voice. It seemed to be the name she had been waiting for, the name her man would brand upon her. Ellen. No longer Eleanor Clearwater, but just Ellen--nothing more. She laughed hysterically. “I’m glad you didn’t select Ella instead,” said she. “No doubt I’d have accepted it, but I’d always have felt low.” They were looking at each other in a dazed way. At the sound of voices and laughter in the hall, both started and the crimson of shame deepened and deepened on Miss Clearwater’s cheeks and neck and shoulders. They faced the others with every sign of confusion and guilt, neither daring to look at the other. He stammered out phrases of departure and left, still with not a glance at her. Sayler decided that he had made an absurd premature proposal and had been sent about his business--“When he might have had her if he’d kept after her with a firm tread.” Out in the cold winter night, George strode along until he was half way to his hotel. Then he paused and addressed the stars, reeling with silent laughter! “What a damn fool I’ve made of myself!” Another man might have said, “What a fool she made of me!” But George Helm was no self-excuser, no shifter of responsibilities. “But I’ve got to put it through,” he went on, still speaking aloud but addressing the dim landscape in the horizon of which towered the Capitol. “And since I’ve got to do it, I’ll do it!” A damn fool!--to take upon his already too heavily burdened shoulders this extra weight of a woman--and just the kind of woman who could be heaviest, most useless. However, instead of walking with bent shoulders, he strode along, shoulders erect. And presently he was whistling like a boy in a pasture. IV THE MATCH-MAKER Men--and women--who restrain sentiment to an obscure, uneffectual part in their own lives take enormous interest in it everywhere else. They have melting eyes and troublesome noses and throats at sentimental plays. They give to street beggars and patronize the literature of slop. They are assiduous matchmakers and want every one--except their own sons and daughters--to marry for love alone.