Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/243

 of you forever. Surely there is nothing finer in being a self-supporting woman than in marrying a poor human being like me and making him happy." Miss Van Dyke looked into his dark eyes, her own falling beneath their expression of love and longing. In a sudden mental illumination she realized why it had been so hard for her to bear her little trials of the past two months under their critical but loving gaze. He had been so fine through it all. He had suffered for her and with her, and it had been unnecessary pain—for she knew now that she had loved him all along.

His stalwart form was between her and the desks near hers. It would be a human bulwark between her and the world, as long as it had life and strength, she knew. The career on which she had entered so happily seemed to have passed beyond her control. Others were shaping it—to her undoing. After all, a woman's place is in a home! She put her hand on the brown ones lying near her, which promptly aught and held it fast. A careful inspection out of the corner of his eye showed Matthews that Henderson was