"All you say may be true, my friend," replied Carley, with a helpless
little upflinging of hands. "Yet it does not alter my feelings."

"But you will marry sooner or later?" he queried, persistently.

This straightforward question struck Carley as singularly as if it was
one she might never have encountered. It forced her to think of things
she had buried.

"I don't believe I ever will," she answered, thoughtfully.

"That is nonsense, Carley," he went on. "You'll have to marry. What
else can you do? With all due respect to your feelings--that affair with
Kilbourne is ended--and you're not the wishy-washy heartbreak kind of a
girl."

"You can never tell what a woman will do," she said, somewhat coldly.

"Certainly not. That's why I refuse to take no. Carley, be reasonable.
You like me--respect me, do you not?"

"Why, of course I do!"

"I'm only thirty-five, and I could give you all any sensible woman
wants," he said. "Let's make a real American home. Have you thought at
all about that, Carley? Something is wrong today. Men are not marrying.
Wives are not having children. Of all the friends I have, not one has a
real American home. Why, it is a terrible fact! But, Carley, you are not
a sentimentalist, or a melancholiac. Nor are you a waster. You have fine
qualities. You need something to do, some one to care for."