“Now what, if I may make so bold, is wrong with your gettin’ a first-class offer from a well-off, good-lookin’ gen’l’man-friend, that’s been keepin’ comp’ny with you, off an’ on, as you might say, ever since you was a child, which shows that his heart’s in the right place an’ his intentions is honorable.  You know, you mustn’t let the percession get by you.  Life’s like standin’ on the curbstone watching the parade—­at least, that’s how it seems to young folks.  They hear the music an’ they see the banners an’ the floats an’ they think it’s goin’ to be a continuous performance.  After a while they’ve got so used to the band a-playin’ an’ the flags a-wavin’ that it gets to be an old story, an’ they think that’s what it’ll be right along, so they don’t trouble to keep their eye peeled for the fella with the water-can, which he asked ’em to watch out for him.  No, they argue he’s good enough in his way, but—­’Think o’ the fella with the drum!’ Or even, it might be, who knows?—­the grand one with his mother’s big black muff on his head, doin’ stunts with his grandfather’s gold-topped club, his grandpa havin’ been a p’liceman with a pull in the ward.  An’ while they stand a-waitin’ for all the grandjer they’re expectin’, suddenly it all goes past, an’ they don’t see nothin’ but p’raps a milk-wagon bringin’ up the rear, an’ the ashfalt all strewed with rag-tag-an’-bobtail, an’ there’s nothin’ doin’ in their direction, except turn around an’ go home.  Now, what’s the matter with Mr. Van Brandt?  If you marry him you’ll be all to the good.  No worry about the rent, no pinchin’ here an’ plottin’ there to keep the bills down.  No goin’ out by the day, rain or shine, traipsin’ the street on your two feet when you’re so dead tired you could lay down an’ let the rest walk over you.  Why, lookin’ at it from any standpoint-of-view I can’t see but it’s a grand oppertoonity.  An’ you’re fond of him, ain’t you?”

“O, yes, I’m very fond of Mr. Van Brandt.  But I’m fond of him as a friend.  I couldn’t—­couldn’t—­couldn’t ever marry him.”

“What for you couldn’t?  It ain’t as if you liked some other fella better!  If you liked some other fella better, no matter how little you might think you’d ever get the refusal of’m, I’d say, stick to the reel article:  don’t be put of with substitoots.  It ain’t no use tryin’ to fool your heart.  You can monkey with your brain, an’ make it believe all sorts of tommyrot, but your heart is dead on to you, an’ when it once sets in hankerin’ it means business.”

Claire nodded unseeingly to her own reflection in the glass.

“Now my idea is,” Martha continued, “my idea is, if you got somethin’ loomin’, why, don’t hide your face an’ play it isn’t there.  There ain’t no use standin’ on the ragged edge till every tooth in your head chatters with cold an’ fright.  You don’t make nothin’ by it.  If you love a man like a friend or if you love a friend like a man, my advice is, take your seat in the chair, grip a-holt o’ the arms, brace your feet, an’—­let’er go, Gallagher!  It’ll be over in a minit, as the dentists say.”