Why Marry? Part 41

HELEN

Ah, but we need the money!

JOHN

[_disconcerted_]

So you are going to spoil a n.o.ble career, are you? That's selfish. I didn't think it of you. There are thousands of successful physicians, but there is only one Ernest Hamilton.

HELEN

[_laughs_]

Oh, don't worry, John, he has promised me to keep his two-thousand-dollar job.

JOHN

Ah, I'm glad. You must let nothing interfere with his great humanitarian work. Think what it means to the lives of little children! Think what it means to the future of the race! Why, every one says his greatest usefulness has hardly begun!

HELEN

Oh, I know all that, I've thought of all that.

JOHN

Now, such men should be kept free from cares and anxiety. What was it you said yesterday? "He needs every cent of his salary for books, travel, all the advantages he simply must have for efficiency." To marry a poor man--most selfish thing a girl could do!

HELEN

Yes, John, that's what I said yesterday.

JOHN

[_scoring_]

But that was before he asked you! [_HELEN smiles. He sneers._] Rather pleased with yourself now, aren't you? "Just a woman after all"--heroine of cheap magazine story! Sacrifices career for love!...

All very pretty and romantic, my dear--but how about the man you love!

Want to sacrifice his career, too?

HELEN

But I'm not going to sacrifice what you are pleased to call my career.... Therefore he won't have to sacrifice his.

JOHN

What! going to keep on working? Will he let the woman he loves work!

HELEN

[_demure_]

Well, you see, he says I'm "too good" to loaf.

JOHN

Humph! who'll take care of your home when you're at work? Who'll take care of your work when you're at home. Look at it practically. To maintain such a home as he needs on such a salary as he has--why, it would take all your time, all your energy. To keep him in his cla.s.s you'll have to drop out of your own, become a household drudge, a servant.

HELEN

And if I am willing?

JOHN

Then where's your intellectual companions.h.i.+p? How'll you help his work?

Expense for him, disillusionment for both. If you're the woman you pretend to be, you won't marry that man!

HELEN

[_strong_]

The world needs his work, but he needs mine, and we both need each other.

JOHN

[_stronger_]

And marriage would only handicap his work, ruin yours, and put you apart. You know that's true. You've seen it happen with others. You have told me so yourself!

HELEN

Then that settles it! We must not, cannot, shall not marry. We have no right to marry. I agree with all you say--it would not join us together; it would put us asunder.