Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/155

 believe that, too. I'm glad I have now. Perhaps it wasn't any great merit, for I suspect that there's a little of the Puritan in me, enough to keep me—fairly decent. It would last, Peggy. Don't you think it would?"

"Perhaps. One would—would have to risk that. Every woman does."

"I suppose you are thinking that—I might marry. You've been frank with me and I'll be frank with you, dear. Well, I don't want to marry; not for a long while, at any rate. Some day—yes, I suppose I shall. When I do it will be a merger rather than a marriage. My mother is ambitious for me, ambitious for the family. It has always, since I was a mere toddler, been an understood thing that my marriage was something in which she was to have the final say. My father had that idea, too. When it comes it will be the joining of the Ames wealth to another fortune as large. She and I—whoever she is—will be merely pawns in the game. It will be just one of a score of such marriages you and I know of. So there's that. Even if I should marry, dear, it would bring no rival to you in my heart."

"I'm glad you told me about—your mother.