Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/392

 or not as long as we're happy? I won't let you go! I won't give you up! If you leave me again, I'll—I'll go after you."

A man, approaching, stared as he came, and then, when he was near enough to see their expressions, he looked away guiltily, as if he had spied on a family quarrel. When he had passed, Margaret said brokenly: "It's so unreasonable! Blaming me! It's only for your sake"

"Then stay for my sake," he pleaded. "I'm only here—I'm only working for you. The money's for you. Everything I do is for you." She fumbled at the handkerchief in the bosom of her jacket. "We've been so happy. And now, with my work come out right—and all—to go away and leave it You won't! Say you won't."

She wiped her eyes in a frantic shame of such public emotion. "But what will we do?"

"We'll do what we have been doing. Wasn't that all right? I have my work now, and what do we care how long it takes to find yours? Well find it some day, Just as I've found mine, and we'll be together, and happy. You were happy, weren't you?"

"Yes. Yes."

"Well, then, what does anything else matter? That's all I ask, to have you with me, so that I can be happy and try to make you happy. Your mother can't do it—any more than my father can make me happy. She hasn't anything to offer you except what will make us both miserable. She hasn't even money. You'll have to work at what you don't like. And here you can wait until you find what you do like."