Page:Georgie by Dorothea Deakin, 1906.djvu/286

"Georgie" eyes were not calculating now; they were wet.

"Thank you, Martin." She said no more and presently she left me. That very night I went to find Georgie; to give my advice with the utmost diplomacy and tact. But I might have saved the breath I spent on it.

"Thank you," said Georgie loftily. "It's the kind of thing a man doesn't do. I broke off with Anne when she was poor and I was rich. I'm not going back to whine at her feet now the tables are turned. Besides, I don't approve of her ways. You know what I told you of Peterkin? It's any means to an end, with Anne."

"Suppose she is still fond of you?" I ventured mildly.

"She'll have to get over it then. It's time she did. Hang it all, Martin, a chap can't marry all the girls who're fond of him. It isn't allowed in a Christian country."

The conceited brutality of this was too much for me and I went away. Of course 270