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318 want to ? I Ve been thinking a lot since I got you telegram. Are you sure you love me?”

He slumped back into his chair. “I don’t kno what love is,” he confessed miserably. “I can’ find out.” Cynthia’s hands tightened in her lap “I’ve tried to think this business out, and I can’l I have n’t any right to ask you to marry me. have n’t any money, not a bit, and I’m not pre pared to do anything, either. As I wrote you, m folks want me to go to Harvard next year.” Th mention of his poverty and of his inability to sup port a wife brought him back to something ap proaching normal again. “I suppose I’m just kid, Cynthia,” he added more quietly, “but sonu times I feel a thousand years old. I do righ now.”

“What were your plans for next year and afte that until you saw me?” Her eyes searched his.

“Oh, I thought I’d go to Harvard a year or tw and then try to write or perhaps teach. Writing ’ slow business, I understand, and teaching does n pay anything. I don’t want to ask my father support us, and I won’t let your folks. I lost m head when I suggested that we get married, would be foolish. I have n’t the right.”

“No,” she agreed slowly; “no, neither of us ha the right. I thought before you came if you aske me to marry you—I was sure somehow that yo would—I would run right off and do it, but now