“How’d you like for me to be that young fella, mamma?” the husband whispered.  “He’s one of the sons, and there ain’t but two left now.”

The wife stared curiously at Bibbs.  “Well, I don’t know,” she returned.  “He looks to me like he had his own troubles.”

“I expect he has, like anybody else,” said the young husband, “but I guess we could stand a good deal if we had his money.”

“Well, maybe, if you keep on the way you been, baby’ll be as well fixed as the Sheridans.  You can’t tell.”  She glanced back at Bibbs, who had turned north.  “He walks kind of slow and stooped over, like.”

“So much money in his pockets it makes him sag, I guess,” said the young husband, with bitter admiration.

Mary, happening to glance from a window, saw Bibbs coming, and she started, clasping her hands together in a sudden alarm.  She met him at the door.

“Bibbs!” she cried.  “What is the matter?  I saw something was terribly wrong when I—­You look—­” She paused, and he came in, not lifting his eyes to hers.  Always when he crossed that threshold he had come with his head up and his wistful gaze seeking hers.  “Ah, poor boy!” she said, with a gesture of understanding and pity.  “I know what it is!”

He followed her into the room where they always sat, and sank into a chair.

“You needn’t tell me,” she said.  “They’ve made you give up.  Your father’s won—­you’re going to do what he wants.  You’ve given up.”

Still without looking at her, he inclined his head in affirmation.

She gave a little cry of compassion, and came and sat near him.  “Bibbs,” she said.  “I can be glad of one thing, though it’s selfish.  I can be glad you came straight to me.  It’s more to me than even if you’d come because you were happy.”  She did not speak again for a little while; then she said:  “Bibbs—­dear—­could you tell me about it?  Do you want to?”

Still he did not look up, but in a voice, shaken and husky he asked her a question so grotesque that at first she thought she had misunderstood his words.

“Mary,” he said, “could you marry me?”

“What did you say, Bibbs?” she asked, quietly.

His tone and attitude did not change.  “Will you marry me?”

Both of her hands leaped to her cheeks—­she grew red and then white.  She rose slowly and moved backward from him, staring at him, at first incredulously, then with an intense perplexity more and more luminous in her wide eyes; it was like a spoken question.  The room filled with strangeness in the long silence—­the two were so strange to each other.  At last she said: 

“What made you say that?”

He did not answer.

“Bibbs, look at me!” Her voice was loud and clear.  “What made you say that?  Look at me!”

He could not look at her, and he could not speak.

“What was it that made you?” she said.  “I want you to tell me.”