Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/210

 "Would you make such a sacrifice for me?" she asked, in a hard, dry tone. "I love my way of life just as well as you do yours. Would you give up your ranch and come and teach school with me?"

"That's not a fair question, Mary. You might as well ask if I would wear girl's clothes to please you. You wouldn't respect me if I did."

"I don't agree with you at all," she said, sharply and argumentatively. It did not sound like her pleasantly-modulated voice. "I don't see that the sacrifice would be any greater for you than for me. My work and my ambitions are just as necessary to me as yours are to you. And you would never think of sacrificing yours for my sake."

"I'm not so sure that there is anything under heaven that I wouldn't do for you, Mary," he cried, impetuously. "But that is something you would never ask. You wouldn't be yourself if you did. Men sacrifice their lives for women, not their careers. It would not be in the nature of things for you to ask of me what I am asking of you."

He paused a moment, and then he was sorry he had done so. Her face was set and repellant. But she spoke before he could stop her.

"No, Fred, I can't do it," she said; "and please don't talk to meany more. Didn't mother say I had a headache?"

"As though I believed that! I don't believe