One evening in the month of May, during her third year at the University, Clara sat on the bank of a tiny stream by a grove of trees, far out on the edge of a suburban village north of Columbus. Beside her sat a young man named Frank Metcalf whom she had known for a year and who had once been a student in the same classes with herself. He was the son of the president of the plow manufacturing company of which her uncle was treasurer. As they sat together by the stream the afternoon light began to fade and darkness came on. Before them across an open field stood a factory, and Clara remembered that the whistle had long since blown and the men from the factory had gone home. She grew restless and sprang to her feet. Young Metcalf who had been talking very earnestly arose and stood beside her. “I can't marry for two years, but we can be engaged and that will be all the same thing as far as the right and wrong of what I want and need is concerned. It isn't my fault I can't ask you to marry me now,” he declared. “In two years now, I'll inherit eleven thousand dollars. My aunt left it to me and the old fool went and fixed it so I don't get it if I marry before I'm twenty-four. I want that money. I've got to have it, but I got to have you too.” Clara looked away into the evening darkness and waited for him to finish his speech. All afternoon he had been making practically the same speech, over and over. “Well, I can't help it, I'm a man,” he said doggedly. “I can't help it, I want you. I can't help it, my aunt was an old fool.” He began to explain the necessity of remaining unmarried in order that he could receive the eleven thousand dollars. “If I don't get that money I'll be just the same as I am now,” he declared. “I won't be any good.” He grew angry and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, stared also across the field into the darkness. “Nothing keeps me satisfied,” he said. “I hate being in my father's business and I hate going to school. In only two years I'll get the money. Father can't keep it from me. I'll take it and light out. I don't know just what I'll do. I'm going maybe to Europe, that's what I'm going to do. Father wants me to stay here and work in his office. To hell with that. I want to travel. I'll be a soldier or something. Anyway I'll get out of here and go somewhere and do something exciting, something alive. You can go with me. We'll cut out together. Haven't you got the nerve? Why don't you be my woman?” Young Metcalf took hold of Clara's shoulder and tried to take her into his arms. For a moment they struggled and then, in disgust, he stepped away from her and again began to scold.