“I cannot. But, on my honor, if I did you would not want to marry me. You would leave me on the street and never return.” Her face, now grave and earnest, was lifted fearlessly and her eyes met his in sincerity. His dumb distress touched her. Her color deepened a little--the passing of a thought. The light of battle flashed in his brown eyes. “Here is the limit you set--Madison Square. Here is my answer: The only fact I recognize is, you have stepped into my life; you are my woman. Beautiful, come with me to the City Hall for a license, and then to the minister. Yonder is a taxi. I love you--I’d just as lieve marry you out of the street as out of a palace!” He drew a thin circlet of gold from his finger. “Here is my mother’s wedding ring, almost her sole legacy to me. It goes with my faith that you are the kind of woman she was!” Mist was in the eyes, turned suddenly away, and then back to him. Her face glowed with an almost unearthly light and beauty. She reached out, took the ring, kissed it and handed it back. “With reverence,” she said tenderly, “but I cannot wear it. There is a reason why I can not. It’s not for me now. You’ll know some day.” Mystified, he stood silently watching her face. And then: “You’ll see me again soon, won’t you?” “Perhaps. But I am not always free. I shall have to pick a time. Now, you go back, please. I must go on. But wait--I--I want to thank you for that faith. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever known. It would not be hard to learn to love such a--boy.” She smiled divinely. “Goodbye!” One of them looked back, after the parting. The psychologists know which. CHAPTER IV Four days of suffering registered on the Southerner. In the hours when he should have been sleeping, he picked at the meshes that held him. It was true that he seemed to have always been conscious of this girl whose vivid beauty now enslaved him. (These artists have wider worlds than the common run of humans.) But what fact had she in mind which, if revealed, would make his love impossible? Who and what was she? He gathered the threads of evidence: her time was not her own; she was, by her own admission, or so he construed it, penniless; he had met her when offices were discharging stenographers for the day, and shop girls were beginning to start homeward; when she left him, she went in the direction of the theater district. But why shouldn’t he marry a stenographer, or an actress, or a shop girl? Or even a model or manicurist or a lady’s maid, if she were square? What had her occupation to do with his happiness?