"
"Peter will be here in a minute." He bent over the table and eyed
her with his old, half-bullying, half-playful manner. "Come round
here and kiss me for old times."
"No!"
"Come."
She stood stubbornly still, and Stewart, still smiling, took a
step or two toward her. Then he stopped, ceased smiling, drew
himself up.
"You are quite right and I'm a rotter." Marie's English did not
comprehend "rotter," but she knew the tone. "Listen, Marie, I've
told the other girl, and there's a chance for me, anyhow. Some
day she may marry me. She asked me to see you."
"I do not wish her pity."
"You are wasting your life here. You cannot marry, you say,
without a dot. There is a chance in America for a clever girl.
You are clever, little Marie. The first money I can spare I'll
send you--if you'll take it. It's all I can do."
This was a new Stewart, a man she had never known. Marie recoiled
from him, eyed him nervously, sought in her childish mind for an
explanation. When at last she understood that he was sincere, she
broke down. Stewart, playing a new part and raw in it, found the
situation irritating. But Marie's tears were not entirely bitter.
Back of them her busy young mind was weaving a new warp of life,
with all of America for its loom. Hope that had died lived again.
Before her already lay that great country where women might labor
and live by the fruit of their labor, where her tawdry past would
be buried in the center of distant Europe.
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