“Ah, don’t say that,” protested Laura.

“Why not?  He’s threatened to enough.  And I’m afraid to go out of the house because I can’t tell when I’ll meet him or what he’ll do.  I was almost sick in that jeweller’s shop, this morning, and so upset I came away without getting my pendant.  There’s another thing I’ve got to go through, I suppose!” She pounded the yielding pillow desperately.  “Oh, oh, oh!  Life isn’t worth living—­it seems to me sometimes as if everybody in the world spent his time trying to think up ways to make it harder for me!  I couldn’t have worn the pendant, though, even if I’d got it,” she went on, becoming thoughtful.  “It’s Richard’s silly old engagement ring, you know,” she explained, lightly.  “I had it made up into a pendant, and heaven knows how I’m going to get Richard to see it the right way.  He was so unreasonable tonight.”

“Was he cross about Mr. Corliss monopolizing you?”

“Oh, you know how he is,” said Cora.  “He didn’t speak of it exactly.  But after you’d gone, he asked me——­” She stopped with a little gulp, an expression of keen distaste about her mouth.

“Oh, he wants me to wear my ring,” she continued, with sudden rapidity:  “and how the dickens can I when I can’t even tell him it’s been made into a pendant!  He wants to speak to father; he wants to announce it.  He’s sold out his business for what he thinks is a good deal of money, and he wants me to marry him next month and take some miserable little trip, I don’t know where, for a few weeks, before he invests what he’s made in another business.  Oh!” she cried.  “It’s a horrible thing to ask a girl to do:  to settle down—­just housekeeping, housekeeping, housekeeping forever in this stupid, stupid town!  It’s so unfair!  Men are just possessive; they think it’s loving you to want to possess you themselves.  A beautiful `love’!  It’s so mean!  Men!” She sprang up and threw out both arms in a vehement gesture of revolt.  “Damn ’em, I wish they’d let me alone!”

Laura’s eyes had lost their quiet; they showed a glint of tears, and she was breathing quickly.  In this crisis of emotion the two girls went to each other silently; Cora turned, and Laura began to unfasten Cora’s dress in the back.

“Poor Richard!” said Laura presently, putting into her mouth a tiny pearl button which had detached itself at her touch.  “This was his first evening in the overflow.  No wonder he was troubled!”

“Pooh!” said Cora.  “As if you and mamma weren’t good enough for him to talk to!  He’s spoiled.  He’s so used to being called `the most popular man in town’ and knowing that every girl on Corliss Street wanted to marry him——­” She broke off, and exclaimed sharply:  “I wish they would!”

“Cora!”

“Oh, I suppose you mean that’s the reason I went in for him?”

“No, no,” explained Laura hurriedly.  “I only meant, stand still.”