There was one plan that was the obvious solution of their difficulty; but he found something repellent in the thought that he should take advantage of Margaret's situation to force her where her heart, perhaps, did not yet make her willing to go. He had looked forward to their marriage as a sort of crowning event for his success in life, when he would be able to offer her the happiness of his prosperity and give her a home worthy of her and of his love. He could not ask her to share a garret with him. He had even a ridiculous shame of letting her see the poverty of his wardrobe, of introducing her to the makeshifts of his dressing-room. His ideal of her demanded that she should be won by nobility and devotion, after the long persuasion of a courtship—not hurried into marriage like a girl of the tenements, against her will, by the pleading of a lover who would use her necessity to force her.
But in the meantime he might lose her. He must find a way to temporize. He must find it at once. And although it was not yet seven o'clock by his watch, he washed and dressed as if he had not a second to spare. The first thing to do was to consult with her. He knew that she would be awake. He tip-toed downstairs and tapped on her door. "Yes?" she answered.
"Come out," he said. "I'll wait at the front door for you."
He heard her patter, barefooted, across the floor. He went below and stood outside on the old "stoop," looking down on the hurry of clerks and shop-girls on their way to the elevated trains that would return them to drudgery. The sky was a sombre wash of smudged grey, heavy, unrefreshed, as if the day had been
