Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/272

260 Her hand remained motionless for a moment, and then she drew it away.

"Don't say that. Tod's quite worthy of me," she answered. "He 's a first-rate fellow, but you never liked him, and so you never appreciated his good points. He's not good-looking, and that 's made people misunderstand him."

Gault smothered a groan, and she went on:

"You asked me why I wanted to marry at all. There 's nothing else for a woman in my position to do. I 'm not bright. I can't do anything like writing, or painting, or making statues. All I do now is to help Maud when she has dinners, and talk to the dull people. And you know"—her voice dropping to a key of naïve confidence—"I sometimes feel that I 'd like to have a home of my own—a house where I could do just what I liked, and have the sort of people I liked to dinner. Maud does n't care for the kind of people I do."

"Why don't you have it, then? You 're of age; you 're financially independent. You can do exactly what you like. You seem to forget that this is the United States at the end of the nineteenth century."

"No, I don't forget; but that does n't make it any easier for me. I can't go off and live all by myself. And think what a fuss Mortimer and Maud would make! It would drive Maud crazy if I did that. People would say I 'd