The day after Honey was buried Tom went to Mrs. Danker's to pay what was owing on the room rent, and take away his effects. The effects went into one small trunk which Mrs. Danker packed, while Tom sat on the edge of the bed and listened to her comments. A little wiry woman, prim in the old New England way, she was tireless in work and conversation.
"He was a fine man, Mr. Honeybun was, and my land! he was fond of you. He'd try to hide it; but half an eye could see that he was that proud of you! He'd be awful up-and-coming while you was here, and make out that it didn't matter to him whether you was here or not; but once you was away—my land! He'd be that down you'd think he'd never come up again. And one thing I could see as plain as plain; he was real determined that when you'd got up in the world he wasn't going to be a drag on you. He'd keep saying that you wasn't beholding to him for anything; and that he'd be glad when you could do without him so that he could get back again to his friends; but my land! half an eye could see."
During these first days Tom found the memory of a love as big as Honey's too poignant to dwell upon. He would dwell upon it later, when the self-reproach which so largely composed his grief had softened
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 down. All he could do as yet was to curse himself for the obtuseness which had taken Honey at the bluff of his words, when the tenderness behind his deeds should have been evident to anyone not a fool.
He couldn't bear to think of it. Not to think of it, he asked Mrs. Danker for news of Maisie. He had often wondered whether Maisie might not have told her aunt in confidence of her engagement to himself; and now he learned that she had not.
"I hardly ever hear from her; but another aunt of Maisie's writes to me now and then. Says that that drummer fellow is back again. I hope he'll keep away from her. He don't mean no good by her, and she goes daft over him every time he turns up. My land! how do we know he hasn't a wife somewheres else, when he goes off a year and more at a time, on his long business trips? This time he's been to Australia. It was to get her away from him that I asked her to spend that winter in Boston; but now that he's back—well, I'm sure I don't know."
Tom had not supposed that at the suggestion of a rival he would have felt a pang; and yet he felt one.
"Of course, there's some one; we know that. It must be some one too who's got plenty of money, because he's given her a di'mond ring that must be worth five hundred dollars, her other aunt tells me, if it's worth a cent. We know he makes big money, because he's got a fine position, and his family is one of the most high thought of in Nashua. That's part of the trouble. They're very religious and toney, so they wouldn't think Maisie a good enough match for him. Still, if he'd only do one thing or the other,
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 keep away from her, or ask her right out and out to marry him...."
Tom was no longer listening. The mention of Maisie's diamond had made him one hot lump of shame. He knew more of the cost of jewels now than when he had purchased the engagement ring, and even if he didn't know much he knew enough.
A few days later he was in Nashua. He went, partly because he had the day to spare before he took up college work again, partly because of a desire to learn what was truly in Maisie's heart, partly to make her some amends for his long neglect of her, and mostly because he needed to pour out his confession as to the diamond ring. Having been warned of his coming, Maisie, who had got rid of the children for an hour or two, awaited him in the parlor.
A little powder, a little unnecessary rouge, a sweater of imitation cherry-colored silk, gave her the vividness of a well-made artificial flower. Even Tom could see that, with her neat short skirt and high-heeled shoes, she was dressed beyond the note of the shabby little room; but if she would only twine her arms around his neck, and give him one of the kisses that used to be so sweet, he could overlook everything else.
Her eyes on the big square cardboard box he carried in his hand, she received him somberly. Having allowed him to kiss her, she sat down at the end of a table drawn up beside the window, while he put the box in front of her.
"What's this?"
He placed himself at the other end of the table,
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 having its length between them. Because of his waning love, because of the ring above all, he had done one of those reckless things which sometimes render men exultant. From his slender means he had filched a hundred dollars for a set of furs. He watched Maisie's face as she untied knots and lifted the cover of the band-box.
On discovering the contents her expression became critical. She fingered the fur without taking either of the articles from the box. Turning over an edge of the boa, she looked at the lining. It was a minute or two before she took out the muff and held it in her hands. She examined it as if she were buying it in a shop.
"That's a last year's style," was her first observation. "It'll be regular old-fashioned by next winter, and, of course, I shouldn't want a muff before then. The girls'll think I got them second-hand when they're as out of date as all that. They're awful particular in Nashua, more like New York than Boston." She shook out the boa. "Those little tails are sweet, but they don't wear them now. How much did you give?"
He told her.
"They're not worth it. It's the marked-down season too. Some one's put it over on you. I could have got them for half the price—and younger. These are an old woman's furs. The girls'll say my aunt in Boston's died, and left them to me in her will."
Brushing them aside, she faced him with her resentful eyes. Her hands were clasped in front of her, the diamond flashing on the finger resting on a
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 table-scarf of thin brown silk embroidered in magenta ferns.
"Well, Tom, what's your answer to my letter?"
At any other minute he would have replied gently, placatingly; but just now his heart was hot. A hundred dollars had meant much to him. It would have to be paid back in paring down on all his necessities, in food, in carfares, even in the washing of his clothes. He too clasped his hands on the table, facing her as she faced him. He remembered afterward how blue her eyes had been, blue as lapis lazuli. All he could see in them now was demand, and further demand, and demand again after that.
"Have I got to give you an answer, Maisie? If so, it's only the one I've given you before. We'll be married when I get through college, and have found work."
"And when'll that be?"
"I'm sorry to say it won't be for another two years, at the earliest."
"Another two years, and I've waited three already!"
"I know you have. But listen, Maisie! When we got engaged I was only sixteen. You were only eighteen. Even now I'm only nineteen, and you're only twenty-one. We've got lots of time. It would be foolish for us to be married...."
She broke in, drily. "So I see."
"You see what, Maisie?"
"What you want me to see. If you think I'm dying to marry you...."
"No, I'm not such an idiot as that. But if we're in love with each other, as we used to be...."
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"As you used to be."
"As I used to be of course; and you too, I suppose."
"Oh, you needn't kill yourself supposing."
............