“Shirley,” he said, “do you remember that talk we had on the ship?  I asked you to be my wife.  You led me to believe that you were not indifferent to me.  I ask you again to marry me.  Give me the right to take care of you and yours.  I am the son of the world’s richest man, but I don’t want his money.  I have earned a competence of my own—­enough to live on comfortably.  We will go away where you and your father and mother will make their home with us.  Do not let the sins of the fathers embitter the lives of the children.”

“Mine has not sinned,” said Shirley bitterly.

“I wish I could say the same of mine,” replied Jefferson.  “It is because the clouds are dark about you that I want to come into your life to comfort you.”

The girl shook her head.

“No, Jefferson, the circumstances make such a marriage impossible.  Your family and everybody else would say that I had inveigled you into it.  It is even more impossible now than I thought it was when I spoke to you on the ship.  Then I was worried about my father’s trouble and could give no thought to anything else.  Now it is different.  Your father’s action has made our union impossible for ever.  I thank you for the honour you have done me.  I do like you.  I like you well enough to be your wife, but I will not accept this sacrifice on your part.  Your offer, coming at such a critical time, is dictated only by your noble, generous nature, by your sympathy for our misfortune.  Afterwards, you might regret it.  If my father were convicted and driven from the bench and you found you had married the daughter of a disgraced man you would be ashamed of us all, and if I saw that it would break my heart.”

Emotion stopped her utterance and she buried her face in her hands weeping silently.

“Shirley,” said Jefferson gently, “you are wrong.  I love you for yourself, not because of your trouble.  You know that.  I shall never love any other woman but you.  If you will not say ‘yes’ now, I shall go away as I told my father I would and one day I shall come back and then if you are still single I shall ask you again to be my wife.”

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I shall travel for a year and then, may be, I shall stay a couple of years in Paris, studying at the Beaux Arts.  Then I may go to Rome.  If I am to do anything worth while in the career I have chosen I must have that European training.”

“Paris!  Rome!” echoed Shirley.  “How I envy you!  Yes, you are right.  Get away from this country where the only topic, the only thought is money, where the only incentive to work is dollars.  Go where there are still some ideals, where you can breathe the atmosphere of culture and art.”

Forgetting momentarily her own troubles, Shirley chatted on about life in the art centres of Europe, advised Jefferson where to go, with whom to study.  She knew people in Paris, Rome and Munich and she would give him letters to them.  Only, if he wanted to perfect himself in the languages, he ought to avoid Americans and cultivate the natives.  Then, who could tell? if he worked hard and was lucky, he might have something exhibited at the Salon and return to America a famous painter.