"Have you asked her? It's none of my business. But I don't believe you have. Tell me this; would you have asked her, if it hadn't been for--if Number Three had never been wrecked in the cut? You see the old railroad terms you taught me still cling. Would you?" "How do I know? If the world hadn't changed under my feet, and the sky over my head--" "Is it so changed? Do the big things, the real things, ever change?... Don't answer that, either. Ban, if I'll go out of your life now, and stay out, _honestly_, will you marry Betty Raleigh and--and live happy ever after?" "Would you want me to?" "Yes. Truly. And I'd hate you both forever." "Betty Raleigh is going to marry some one else." "No! I thought--people said--Are you sorry, Ban?" "Not for myself. I think he's the wrong man for her." "Yes; that would be a change of the earth underfoot and the sky overhead, if one cared," she mused. "And I said they didn't change." "Don't they!" retorted Banneker bitterly. "You are married." "I have been married," she corrected, with an air of amiable rectification. "It was a wise thing to do. Everybody said so. It didn't last. Nobody thought it would. I didn't really think so myself." "Then why in Heaven's name--" "Oh, let's not talk about it now. Some other time, perhaps. Say next time we meet; five or six months from now.... No; I won't tease you any more, Ban. It won't be that. It won't be long. I'll tell you the truth: I'd heard a lot about you and Betty Raleigh, and I got to know her and I hoped it would be a go. I did; truly, Ban. I owed you that chance of happiness. I took mine, you see; only it wasn't happiness that I gambled for. Something else. Safety. The stakes are usually different for men and women. So now you know.... Well, if you don't, you've grown stupid. And I don't want to talk about it any more. I want to talk about--about The Patriot. I read it this morning while I was waiting; your editorial. Ban"--she drew a derisive mouth--"I was shocked." "What was it? Politics?" asked Banneker, who, turning out his editorials several at a time, seldom bothered to recall on what particular day any one was published. "You wouldn't be expected to like our politics." "Not politics. It is about Harvey Wheelwright." Banneker was amused. "The immortally popular Wheelwright. We're serializing his new novel, 'Satiated with Sin,' in the Sunday edition. My idea. It'll put on circulation where we most need it." "Is that any reason why you should exploit him as if he were the foremost living novelist?" "Certainly. Besides, he is, in popularity." "But, Ban; his stuff is awful! If this latest thing is like the earlier. ["Worse," murmured Banneker.] And you're writing about him as if he were--well, Conrad and Wells rolled into one."