She went closer to him, her eyes ever brighter and wider with that intensity of wonder.  “You’ve given up—­to your father,” she said, slowly, “and then you came to ask me—­” She broke off.  “Bibbs, do you want me to marry you?”

“Yes,” he said, just audibly.

“No!” she cried.  “You do not.  Then what made you ask me?  What is it that’s happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Wait,” she said.  “Let me think.  It’s something that happened since our walk this morning—­yes, since you left me at noon.  Something happened that—­” She stopped abruptly, with a tremulous murmur of amazement and dawning comprehension.  She remembered that Sibyl had gone to the New House.

Bibbs swallowed painfully and contrived to say, “I do—­I do want you to—­marry me, if—­if—­you could.”

She looked at him, and slowly shook her head.  “Bibbs, do you—­” Her voice was as unsteady as his—­little more than a whisper.  “Do you think I’m—­in love with you?”

“No,” he said.

Somewhere in the still air of the room there was a whispered word; it did not seem to come from Mary’s parted lips, but he was aware of it.  “Why?”

“I’ve had nothing but dreams,” Bibbs said, desolately, “but they weren’t like that.  Sibyl said no girl could care about me.”  He smiled faintly, though still he did not look at Mary.  “And when I first came home Edith told me Sibyl was so anxious to marry that she’d have married me.  She meant it to express Sibyl’s extremity, you see.  But I hardly needed either of them to tell me.  I hadn’t thought of myself as—­well, not as particularly captivating!”

Oddly enough, Mary’s pallor changed to an angry flush.  “Those two!” she exclaimed, sharply; and then, with thoroughgoing contempt:  “Lamhorn!  That’s like them!” She turned away, went to the bare little black mantel, and stood leaning upon it.  Presently she asked:  “When did Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan say that ‘no girl’ could care about you?”

“To-day.”

Mary drew a deep breath.  “I think I’m beginning to understand—­a little.”  She bit her lip; there was anger in good truth in her eyes and in her voice.  “Answer me once more,” she said.  “Bibbs, do you know now why I stopped wearing my furs?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so!  Your sister-in-law told you, didn’t she?”

“I—­I heard her say—­”

“I think I know what happened, now.”  Mary’s breath came fast and her voice shook, but she spoke rapidly.  “You ‘heard her say’ more than that.  You ‘heard her say’ that we were bitterly poor, and on that account I tried first to marry your brother—­and then—­” But now she faltered, and it was only after a convulsive effort that she was able to go on.  “And then—­that I tried to marry—­you!  You ‘heard her say’ that—­and you believe that I don’t care for you and that ‘no girl’ could care for you—­but you think I am in such an ‘extremity,’ as Sibyl was—­that you—­ And so, not wanting me, and believing that I could not want you—­except for my ‘extremity’ —­you took your father’s offer and then came to ask me—­to marry you!  What had I shown you of myself that could make you—­”