"Now, you look-a-here, Julia--you look-a-here," Mark began, almost angrily. "I am going to ask you to marry me! You've fooled about it, and you've laughed about it, and I've got a right to _know_! I think about it all the time; I lie awake at night and think about it. I"--his voice softened suddenly--"I love you awfully, Julia," he said. And then, with a sort of concentrated passion that rather frightened the girl, he added, "So I'm going to ask you once more. I want you to answer me, d'ye see?" The car sped on, clanged across Market Street, turned into the Mission. Julia had grown a little pale. She gave Mark a fleeting glance, looked away, and finally brought her eyes back to him again. "I wish you wouldn't take things so _seriously_, Mark," she began uneasily. "You're always forcing me to say things--and I don't want to--I don't want to get married _at all_--" "Nonsense!" said Mark harshly. "It's not nonsense!" Julia protested, glad to feel her anger rising. Mark saw her heightened colour, and misread it. "Yes," he said sneeringly. "That's all very well, but I'll bet you'd feel pretty badly if I never came near you again--if I let the whole thing drop!" "Oh, Mark," said Julia fervently, "if you only _would_--I don't mean that!" she interrupted herself, compunction seizing her at the look of mortal hurt on his face. "But I mean--if you only didn't love me! You see, I'm perfectly happy, Mark, I've got what I want. And if Miss Toland takes me abroad with her next year, why, it'll mean more to me than _any_ marriage could, don't you see that? You know what my childhood was, Mark; my mother didn't love my father--" And as a sudden memory of the old life rose to confront her, Julia's tone became firm; she felt a certain sureness. "Married people ought to love each other, Mark," she said positively. "I _know_ that. And I won't--I _never_ will marry a man I don't love. If everything goes wrong, after that, you have only yourself to blame. And so many times it goes wrong, Mark! I should be unhappy, I should keep wondering if I wouldn't be happier going my own way--wondering if I wouldn't have--have gotten farther--do you understand me?" This was a long speech for Julia, and during it Mark had twisted about, and pulled his hat over his face. Now, in a voice curiously dead and hard, he asked briefly: "Gotten farther--_where_?" "I don't know," said Julia candidly. "But the more I read, and the more I think, the more it seems to me that anyone can be anything in this world; there's some queer rule that makes you rise if you want to rise, if only you don't compromise! The reason so many people _don't_ ultimately get what they want is because they stop trying for it, and take something else!" "And marriage with me would be a compromise, is that it?" Mark muttered sullenly. "It would be for me," Julia answered serenely. "Because staying where I am keeps me nearer what I want." "Money, huh?" asked Mark.