"Don't you think I'd be able to adapt myself?"
"I should hope so. How much is your army pay, if you don't mind my asking?"
"As first lieutenant I get a little over two thousand."
"Two thousand a week? Why, that's not bad at all. Why did you frighten me?"
He laughed aloud, and she corrected herself.
"Oh, two thousand a month. That's about twenty-five thousand a year. It isn't much, is it? But we could skimp and scrape, and we'd have each other."
She had given him his death-blow unwittingly.
She stared at him in unbelief. "Two thousand a year with forage! We couldn't eat the forage, could we? They give you a pittance like that for being an officer and a gentleman and a hero?"
"The hero business is the worst paid of all. Look at the firemen."
"But, my dear, two thousand a--why, our chef gets more than that, and our chauffeur nearly as much; and my father's secretary--everybody gets more than that."
"Not everybody. The vast majority of people get much less. But that's what I get."
She had been prepared for self-denial, but this was self-obliteration. If he had told her that he had the yellow fever she could hardly have felt sorrier for him, or more appalled at the prospect of their union. She loved him, perhaps, the more for the pity that welled up in her. She denounced the government for a miser.
"We're better paid than other armies," said Forbes. "Officers in foreign armies are supposed to have private fortunes."
"I don't wonder," she gasped. "And you haven't any?" He shook his head. "No relatives?"
She put out her hand and caressed his brow. "Poor boy, it's cruel, it's hateful! Willie Enslee with all that money, and you with two thousand a year! And no prospects for more?"
"Well, I hope to be promoted captain very shortly--any day now I should get my commission. That carries with it twenty-four hundred a year."
She sighed. "The little car I wanted would cost more than that. Well, let it go. Walking is healthier. It would save the chauffeur's wages, too. And my maid--I don't know what Nichette would say. But--well, let her go. Let everything go but you."
She clasped her arms round him, and he clutched her tight; but his embrace was like a farewell. She was infinitely pathetic to him. She had so much sophistication, and was so innocent of so much. She kissed him tenderly, but her mood was an elegy.