“Your eyes are open, dear, are n't they?” he said. “You really do realise what a sacrifice you are making in marrying me?” “By not marrying you,” she replied, “I should have gained the world and lost my own soul. Now I am doing the reverse.”' He kissed her finger-tips lover-wise. “I am afraid I must be the devil's advocate, and say that the loss and gain need not be so absolutely differentiated. I want you to be happy. My God! I want you to be happy,” he burst out with sudden passion, “and if you found that things were infinitely worse than what you had expected, that you had married me in awful ignorance--” She covered his lips with the palm of her hand. “Don't go on. You pain me. You make me despise myself. I have counted the cost, such as it is. Did I not tell you from the first that I would go with you in rags and barefoot through the world? Could woman say more? Don't you believe me?” “Yes, I believe you,” he replied, bowing his head. “You are a great-hearted woman.” She unfastened her hat, skewered it through with the pins, and gave it him to put down. “I remember my Solomon,” she said, trying to laugh lightly, for there had been a faint but disconcerting sense of effort in her protestation. “'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred there with.' Besides, you forget another important matter. I am now a homeless, penniless outcast. I am not sacrificing anything. It is very kind of you to offer to take me in and shelter me.” “These are sophistries,” said Jimmie, with a laugh. “You gave up all on my account.” “But I am really penniless,” she said, ignoring his argument. “_Anch' io son pittore_. I too have felt the pinch of poverty.” “You?” She revealed her financial position--the overdraft at the bank, the shilling between herself and starvation. Were it not for Connie, she would have to sing in the streets. She alluded thoughtlessly, with her class's notions as to the value of money, to her “miserable two hundred a year.” “Two hundred a year!” cried Jimmie. “Why, that's a fortune!” His tone struck a sudden chill through her. He genuinely regarded the paltry sum as untold riches. She struggled desperately down to his point of view. “Perhaps it may come in useful for us,” she said lamely. “I should think it will! Why did n't you tell me before?” “Have you never thought I might have a little of my own?” she asked with a touch of her old hardness. “No,” said Jimmie. “Of course not.” “I don't see any 'of course' in the matter. The ordinary man would have speculated--it would have been natural--almost common-sense.” Jimmie threw up his hands deprecatingly. “I have been too much dazzled by the glorious gift of yourself to think of anything else you might bring. I am an impossible creature, as you will find out. I ought to have considered the practical side.”