Get to the point!”

The young man took a quick stride across the room, glanced out the door, looking up and down the hall, and then came back and seated himself in a chair opposite her with an annoyed fling, crossing one well-tailored knee over the other and glaring at her disapprovingly.

“The point is,” he said haughtily, “that I came here with the intention of planning something for you that I thought would be a help. I wanted you to come to dinner so that we might have the evening by ourselves, uninterrupted. But it seems you are trying to be difficult, so of course there is nothing for it but to tell you in a few words. Perhaps then you will come to your senses and be willing to go with me after all. The whole thing is this, Jen: you can’t possibly stay here and run this house and deal with these kids. Somebody else will have to take that burden from you. And I understand there are plenty of relatives quite ready to do so. I have just been talking with your aunt, Mrs. Holbrook, and your aunt, Mrs. Best, and they assure me that they have plans whereby all the children are to be provided for, and you will have no obligations whatever. There is no reason in the world why you will not be free to go your own way and do just as you please.”

Jennifer looked up with angry eyes, her lips closed in a thin line, but she said nothing, and Peter Willis went smoothly on.

“Now my idea is this, Jen: I decided that the thing for us to do is to get married right away and take a run over to Europe for a while till this thing here is all arranged, and then you will have no further obligations. Your aunts both assured me that none of them would offer any objections to such a course, and there was no reason why we shouldn’t go straight ahead and make our plans for an early marriage. Of course, I would understand that under the circumstances you would want a quiet wedding, and I would be quite willing for that. Everyone would understand, of course. And it isn’t as if people hadn’t all understood for some time what was coming off. Now, Jen, do you see why I want you to come to our house to dinner tonight, where we can have plenty of time and quiet to make our plans?”

He paused and eyed her rebukingly. Jennifer gave him a steady, quiet look and then she rose.

“Why yes, I suppose I do get your viewpoint now but, you see, I have no plans to make. I am not expecting to marry anyone at present, and I have obligations here. Sorry, Pete, but my time is up and I simply must go. There are household matters that demand my attention at once. You really will have to excuse me.”

“Nonsense!” said the young man sharply. “What about your obligations to me?”

“To you? Obligations?” Jennifer lifted her eyebrows just the least little bit. “I didn’t know I had any obligations to you. Just what are they, Pete?”

A look of swift anger passed over the handsome face of the young man. “The obligations of a girl who has accepted constant attentions from a man and seemed quite willing to accept them. The obligations of a girl who has allowed her name to be coupled with a man’s name until practically everybody in town considers them engaged!”

He flung the words at her like darts that he was aiming straight at her, with a look of utmost contempt on his face.

“Oh! Really? Why, Pete, I haven’t been with you any oftener than I have with Chic Warrener or Mont Martin or Harold Fulton or Rance Carroll, and I’m quite sure people wouldn’t consider that I was engaged to all of them. I don’t believe that people are saying or thinking that about us.”

“And yet both of your aunts spoke as if they had thought for some time that our marriage was a foregone conclusion.”

“Oh, my aunts!” laughed Jennifer. “I’m afraid they don’t count. But really, Pete, this talk is absurd. You never asked me to marry you, and I never really considered the matter.