“So you see it’s all up,” continued he, with a curious air of bravado, patently insincere.  “And it’s just as well.  You oughtn’t to marry me.  It’s a crime for me to have permitted things to go this far.”

“Perhaps you are right,” replied she slowly and thoughtfully.  “Perhaps you are right.”

He made one of his exclamatory gestures, a swift jerk around of the head toward her.  He had all he could do to restrain himself from protesting, without regard to his pretenses to himself and to her.  “Do you mean that, Maggie?” he asked with more appeal in his voice than he was conscious of.

“Never call me that again!” she cried.  “It’s detestable—­so common!”

He drew back as if she had struck him.  “I beg your pardon,” he said with gentle dignity.  “I shall not do it again.  Maggie was my mother’s name—­what she was always called at home.”

She turned her eyes toward him with a kind of horror in them.  “Oh, forgive me!” she begged, her clasped hands upon his arm.  “I didn’t mean it at all—­not at all.  It is I that am detestable and common.  I spoke that way because I was irritated about something else.”  She laid one hand caressingly against his cheek.  “You must always call me Maggie—­when—­when “—­very softly—­“you love me very, very much.  I like you to have a name for me that nobody else has.”

He seized her hands.  “You do care for me, don’t you?” he cried.

She hesitated.  “I don’t quite know,” said she.  Then, less seriously:  “Not at all, I’m sure, when you talk of breaking the engagement.  I wish you hadn’t seen grandmother!”

“I wish so, too,” confessed he.  “I made an ass of myself.”

She glanced at him quickly.  “Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know,” he stammered confusedly.  How could he tell her?

“A moment ago you seemed well pleased with what you’d done.”

“Well, I guess I went too far.  I wasn’t very polite.”

“You never are.”

“I’m going to try to do better....No, I don’t think it would be wise for me to go and apologize to her.”

She was looking at him strangely.  “Why are you so anxious to conciliate her?”

He saw what a break he had made, became all at once red and inarticulate.

“What is she to you?” persisted the girl.

“Nothing at all,” he blustered.  “I don’t care—­that”—­he snapped his fingers—­“for her opinion.  I don’t care if everybody in the world is against our marrying.  I want just you—­only you.”

“Obviously,” said she with a dry laugh that was highly disconcerting to him.  “I certainly have no fortune—­or hope of one, so far as I know.”

This so astounded, so disconcerted him that he forgot to conceal it.  “Why, I thought—­your grandmother—­that is—­” He was remembering, was stammering, was unable to finish.

“Go on,” she urged, obviously enjoying his hot confusion.