Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/339

 "Dick is such a nice boy," said Mary. "I'm glad you are going to marry him, Nannie."

"Who said I was going to marry him?"

"That's what he wants, Nannie, and you know it."

"Mr. Knox says it is a pity for a girl like me to get married."

Mary's heart seemed to stop beating. She knew just how Knox had said it.

She spoke quietly. "I think it would be a pity for you not to marry, Nannie."

"I don't see why. You aren't married, Mary."

"No."

"And Mr. Knox says that unless a girl can marry a man who can lift her up she had better stay single."

The same old arguments! "What does he mean by 'lift her up,' Nannie?"

"Well"—Nannie laughed self-consciously—"he says that any one as pretty and refined as I might marry anybody; that I must be careful not to throw myself away."

"Would it be throwing yourself away to marry Dick?"

"It might be. He looked all right to me before I went into the office. But after you've seen men like Mr. Knox—well, our kind seem—common."

Mrs. Ashburner was calling that Dick McDonald was down-stairs. Nannie, powdering her nose with 333