“Don’t blame a fellow for every loose word he utters when he’s all upset, Janet,” he pleaded.  “Put yourself in my place.  Suppose you found you hadn’t anything at all—­found it out suddenly, when all along you had been thinking you’d never have to bother about money?  Suppose you—­But you must know how the world, how all our friends, look on that sort of thing.  And suppose you loved—­just as I love you.  Wouldn’t you go to her and hope she’d brace you up and make you feel that she really loved you and—­all that?  Wouldn’t you, Janet?”

She looked sadly at him.  “You don’t understand,” she said, her rosebud mouth drooping pathetically.  “You can’t realize how you shook—­how you shattered—­my faith in you.”

He caught her by the arms roughly.  “Look here, Janet Whitney.  Do you love me or don’t you?  Do you intend to throw me over, now that I have lost my money, or do you intend to be all you’ve pretended to be?”

The sadness in her sweet face deepened.  “Let me go, Arthur,” she said quietly.  “You don’t understand.  You never will.”

“Yes or no?” he demanded, shaking her.  Then suddenly changing to tenderness, with all his longing for sympathy in his eyes and in his voice, “Janet—­dear—­yes or no?”

She looked away.  “Don’t persist, Arthur,” she said, “or you will make me think it is only my money that makes you, that made you, pretend to—­to care for me.”

He drew back sharply.  “Janet!” he exclaimed.

“Of course, I don’t think so,” she continued, after a constrained silence.  “But I can’t find any other reason for your talking and acting as you have this morning.”

He tried to see from her point of view.  “Maybe it’s true,” he said, “that other things than our love have had too much to do with it, with both of us, in the past.  But I love you for yourself alone, now, Janet.  And, you haven’t a fortune of your own, but only expectations—­and they’re not always realized, and in your case can’t be for many a year.  So we don’t start so unevenly.  Give yourself to me, Janet.  Show that you believe in me, and I know I shall not disappoint you.”

Very manly his manner was as he said this, and brave and convincing was the show of his latent, undeveloped powers in his features and voice.  She hesitated, then lowered her head, and, in a sad, gentle voice, said, “I don’t trust you, Arthur.  You’ve cut away the foundation of love.  It would be fine and beautiful for us to start empty-handed and build up together, if we were in sympathy and harmony.  But, doubting you—­I can’t.”

Again he looked at her uneasily, suspicious, without knowing why or what.  But one thing was clear—­to plead further with her would be self-degradation.  “I have been tactless,” he said to her.  “Probably, if I were less in earnest, I should get on better.  But, perhaps you will judge me more fairly when you think it over.  I’ll say only one thing more.  I can’t give up hope.  It’s about all I’ve got left—­hope of you—­belief in you.  I must cling to that.  I’ll go now, Janet.”