Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/365

 "Not wait to be married?" asked Gregg.

"I've a real job too, now. I resigned at Bostrock's to-day and began with Leffrick, selling accounting systems for small stores, Gregg. I've known some of Leffrick's city salespeople—women—for quite a while. They work full time or part time, if they've families; he arranges territories for them, according to the time they can put in. I'm starting a full timer with a drawing account based on my last month with Bostrock, twenty a week. I can change to part time whenever I ask to, so when I'm married" she caught her breath and said, "when we're married"

"We married!" Gregg whispered and had to gasp for breath, too.

"We can start on forty-four dollars a week, as long as we're both earning. We can live on that and we're going to, and also we'll put by so that when our babies come, we'll have a little saved."

He gathered her in his arms and held her to him.

"Marjorie!" he whispered; and he spoke only her name again and again. "Marjorie; Marjorie" and he thought only, "I have her," and he felt her against him and in his arms. Then he felt himself in her arms; she was clasping him; and so they kissed and drew back the barest trifle and held their lips on each other's again. Then that which had been restraining them both—until in this physical yielding they put it away and denied it—that touched them again and relaxed their arms and separated their lips. It was contact with that which physical yielding had led to,—memory of her father shot in the flat on Clearedge Street, of her lie to Stanway, of Billy quiet and so white. She had to banish all this again; and not even Gregg's arms or hers about him could do it. The only