Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/314

 you?" He caught at her hand. "Martha, why hunt for rainbows when we have the pot of gold in our hands?"

She shook her head. "It wouldn't be the pot of gold," she said sadly. "It would be a mess of pottage, and you mustn't sell your heritage for it, any more than I."

He looked at her hard, and saw that he had no hold on her.

"Oh, it's finished for me!" he cried bitterly, out of all patience. "If you send me away for some romantic notion, you need have no idea that I will marry any one else. I shall never have anything to do with a woman again."

She said steadfastly though her lips were trembling, "I think when it's a question of what's the finest in us, that nothing at all is better than a halting compromise."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said angrily and for the moment truthfully. "You're ruining our two lives for some hair-spun fancy."

She grew paler, and said in a deep voice, "Neale, I have told you that I would hate you if you were my husband."

He turned away to the door. "Good-by," he said coldly.

She did not answer.

He went out of the door, and down the stairs. At the bottom he turned and came up again. He found her standing where he had left her. He said gently, "You're right, Martha."

She held out her arms to him. They kissed, sadly, wistfully, like brother and sister parting for a long separation.

Neale went away silently in a confusion so great that from time to time he stopped on the sidewalk till the street straightened itself out before him, and he could see where to take the next step.