Ive Married Marjorie | Page 8

into it so. I wonder if she really will care when
I come back.' It was such a long time. But then your letters were so
sweet and loving, and I cared such a lot----"
His voice broke. He had been talking on a carefully emotionless dead
level, but now he suddenly stopped as if he had come to the end of his
control. But he was only silent a moment, and went on:
"I cared so much that I thought you must. That's a queer thing, isn't it?
You've known all your life that other people think if they care enough
the other person will care, and you know they're idiots. And then your
time comes, and you go and are the same old idiot yourself. . . . Queer.
Well, I'm sorry, Marjorie. Shall I go now? We can think about what
we'd better do next time we talk it over."
"Oh, please, please!" begged Marjorie. "Oh, Francis, I feel like a dog--a
miserable, little coward-dog. And--and I don't know why you're making
all this up. I--I haven't said anything like what----"
He put his arm around her, not in the least as if he were her lover. It
only felt protecting, not like a man's touch.
"I would be glad to think you cared for me. But I am almost sure you

don't. Everything you have said, and every one of your actions since we
came in, have seemed to me as if you didn't. It isn't your fault, poor
little thing. It's mine for hurrying you into it. . . . Marjorie, Marjorie--do
you?"
There was an intense entreaty in his tone. But she knew that only the
truth would do.
"No," she said, dropping her head.
"I thought not," he said, rising stiffly and crossing to the door. "Well,
I'll go now. I'll come back some time to-morrow, whenever it's most
convenient for you, and we'll discuss details."
She ran after him. She did feel very guilty.
"Oh, Francis--Francis! Please don't go! I'm sure I'll feel the way I
should when I've tried a little longer!"
He stopped for a moment, but only to write something down on a piece
of paper.
"There's my telephone number," he said. "No, Marjorie, I can't stay any
longer. This has been pretty bad. I've got to go off and curl up a minute,
I think, if you don't mind. . . . Oh, dearest, don't you see that I can't stay?
I'll have myself straightened out by to-morrow, but----"
He had been acting very reasonably up to now. But now he flung
himself out the door like a tornado. It echoed behind him. Marjorie did
not try to keep him. She sat still for a minute longer, shivering. Then
she began to cry. She certainly did not want him for her husband, but
equally she did not want him to go off and leave her. So she went over
to the davenport again, where she could cry better, and did wonders in
that line, in a steady, low-spirited way, till Lucille came breezily in.
Lucille Strong was a plump, exuberant person with corn-colored hair
and bright blue eyes and the most affectionate disposition in the world.
She also had a quick, fly-away temper, and more emotions than

principles. But her sense of humor was so complete, and her sunniness
so steady that nobody demanded great self-sacrifice from her. Who
wouldn't give anybody the biggest piece of cake and the best chair and
the most presents, for the sake of having a Little Sunshine in the home?
At least, that was the way Billy Strong had looked at it. He had been
perfectly willing to put off his marriage until Lucille decreed that there
was money enough for her to have her little luxuries after marriage, in
order to eventually possess Lucille. People always and automatically
gave her the lion's share of all material things, and she accepted them
quite as automatically. She was a very pleasant housemate, and if she
coaxed a little, invisibly, in order to acquire the silk stockings and
many birthday presents and theater tickets which drifted to her, why, as
she said amiably, people value you more when they do things for you
than when you do things for them.
"Why, you poor lamb!" she said with sincere sympathy, pouncing on
the desolate and very limp Marjorie. "What's the matter? Did Francis
have to go away from you? Look here, honey, you can have my----"
What Lucille was about to offer was known only to herself, because she
never got any farther. Marjorie sat up, her blue eyes dark-circled with
tears, and perhaps with the strain she had been undergoing.
"Yes," she said in a subdued voice. "He--he had to go. He'll be back
to-morrow."
Lucille