"You are not going," he began, angrily. "I'm damned if you do!"
"Oh, my dear, my own dear," she murmured within. Outwardly she shook her head briskly and added, "Yes, I am. The hours--the salary----"
"The deuce take that stuff! How much more money do you want me to pay you? How few hours a day will you consent to work? You know so well it has been you who have done your own slave driving. Besides, I can't get on without you."
Steve stood up, crumpling the letter in his hand. "You mean because of what I said--that time?"
"Partly; partly because I find myself disapproving of your transactions."
"They are a safe gamble," he began, vehemently.
"Are they? I doubt it. Don't ask me to stay. I want to remain poised and content. If I cannot be radiantly happy I can be content, the sort of old-lavender-and-star-dust peace that used to be mine."
"Have I ever said things, made you feel or do----"
"Oh, no." As she looked at him the gray eyes turned wistful purple. "But it is what we may say or do, Mister Penny Wise."
Steve looked at the crumpled letter. "So you are going over to staid graybeards who deal in cotton and woollens, and play commercial nun to the end--is that it?"
"And you do care?" he persisted, brutally.
"Well, I don't care about fool laws--they are mighty thin stuff. I love you," he told her with quiet emphasis.
Mary did not answer but the purple of the eyes changed back to stormy gray.
"Why don't you say something? Abuse me, claim me----"
"I haven't the courage even if I have the right," she said, presently. "Besides, the last year I have been loving an ideal--the Steve O'Valley who existed one time and might still exist if other things were equal. But in reality you are a prematurely nerve-shattered, blundering pirate; not my Steve." She spoke his name softly. "The failure of my ideal--and it's a little hard to live with and work with such a failure. My hands are tied, yet my eyes see. Besides, there is Luke to think about and care for until some other woman does it. I cannot endure this tangle; neither can I get you out of it. So I am going away. And I'll keep on loving my ideal and find the old-lavender-and-star-dust sort of peace."
"You are not going!" he repeated, sharply, taking her hand. "Do you hear? I love you. I have loved you enough to keep silent about it ever since that day. Does it mean nothing to you?"