“I’m going to show you a way out,” he said softly.  “I’ve been thinking it over for quite a while.  I want you to marry me.”

Stella gasped.

“Mr. Fyfe.”

“Listen,” he said peremptorily, leaning closer to her and lowering his voice.  “I have an idea that you’re going to say you don’t love me.  Lord, I know that.  But you hate this.  It grates against every inclination of yours like a file on steel.  I wouldn’t jar on you like that.  I wouldn’t permit you to live in surroundings that would.  That’s the material side of it.  Nobody can live on day dreams.  I like you, Stella Benton, a whole lot more than I’d care to say right out loud.  You and I together could make a home we’d be proud of.  I want you, and you want to get away from this.  It’s natural.  Marry me and play the game fair, and I don’t think you’ll be sorry.  I’m putting it as baldly as I can.  You stand to win everything with nothing to lose—­but your domestic chains—­” the gleam of a smile lit up his features for a second.  “Won’t you take a chance?” “No,” she declared impulsively.  “I won’t be a party to any such cold-blooded transaction.”

“You don’t seem to understand me,” he said soberly.  “I don’t want to hand out any sentiment, but it makes me sore to see you wasting yourself on this sort of thing.  If you must do it, why don’t you do it for somebody who’ll make it worth while?  If you’d use the brains God gave you, you know that lots of couples have married on flimsier grounds than we’d have.  How can a man and a woman really know anything about each other till they’ve lived together?  Just because we don’t marry with our heads in the fog is no reason we shouldn’t get on fine.  What are you going to do?  Stick here at this till you go crazy?  You won’t get away.  You don’t realize what a one-idea, determined person this brother of yours is.  He has just one object in life, and he’ll use everything and everybody in sight to attain that object.  He means to succeed and he will.  You’re purely incidental; but he has that perverted, middle-class family pride that will make him prevent you from getting out and trying your own wings.  Nature never intended a woman like you to be a celibate, any more than I was so intended.  And sooner or late you’ll marry somebody—­if only to hop out of the fire into the frying pan.”

“I hate you,” she flashed passionately, “when you talk like that.”

“No, you don’t,” he returned quietly.  “You hate what I say, because it’s the truth—­and it’s humiliating to be helpless.  You think I don’t sabe? But I’m putting a weapon into your hand.  Let’s put it differently; leave out the sentiment for a minute.  We’ll say that I want a housekeeper, preferably an ornamental one, because I like beautiful things.  You want to get away from this drudgery.  That’s what it is, simple drudgery.  You crave lots of things you can’t get by yourself, but that you could help me get for you.  There’s things lacking in your life, and so is there in mine.  Why shouldn’t we go partners?  You think about it.”