Silence for a moment. Then, "You are asking a great deal of me, Sally."
"I know, but—if I am married in June, none of them will be here for the wedding."
"I see." And after a pause, "Just whom do you mean by 'them'?"
"I want Hildegarde for my maid of honor, and Merry for one of the ushers."
He demanded; "Is Merry going across?"
"Of course. He always goes with Louis."
"I see. Do you think you are playing quite fair, Sally?"
"Perhaps not. But Neale . . . if you feel that I must marry you in June, I'm afraid that I can't marry you at all. . . ."
As if she had struck him, a red flush flamed across his whiteness. That, sitting in his king's chair, amid all the splendors which were to be hers, she could give it up with a gesture! It was incredible. Sally had nothing. She was, in effect a beggar maid spurning a crown.
"Suppose," he said, drily, "that I should take you at your word and release you."
She had a wild glimpse of freedom. "You'll have to do as you think best, Neale?"
"You won't be married in June?"
"No."
He knew that she meant it, and that if he pressed it she would give him up. And his world and her world would laugh at him. They would say that in spite of his wealth he could not hold her. That it was youth rejecting age. He was an egotist, and the thought that
