``I shan't ask Stanley until my other plans have
failed.''
``What other plans?''
``I am going to ask Mrs. Belloc for the money. She
could afford to give--to lend--the little I'd want.
I'm going to ask her in such a way that it will be as
hard as possible for her to refuse. That isn't ladylike,
but--I've dropped out of the lady class.''
``And if she refuses?''
``Then I'll go one after another to several very
rich men I know, and ask them as a business proposition.''
``Go in person,'' advised he with an undisguised sneer.
``I'll raise no false hopes in them,'' she said. ``If
they choose to delude themselves, I'll not go out of my
way to undeceive them--until I have to.''
``So THIS is Mildred Gower?''
``You made that remark before.''
``Really?''
``When Stanley showed you a certain photograph of me.''
``I remember. This is the same woman.''
``It's me,'' laughed she. ``The real me. You'd not
care to be married to her?''
``No,'' said he. Then, after a brief silence: ``Yet,
curiously, it was that woman with whom I fell in love.
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