“What do you propose to do with me at the end of that time?”
She looked away from him and did not answer.
“Did you put anything about time into your ceremony the other night?”
She did not answer.
“What did you put into that ceremony, Valerie?”
“I shan’t tell you.”
A smile spread over his face and lit it up as a field of golden grain lights up a brown hillside. She was so glad to see it that she flung her arms round him. But he responded only soberly, and with a very chaste kiss, and she sat up again.
With a comical resigned air he took out his pipe and began to smoke. She knew perfectly well that the question was not settled between them, but she did not know what was in his mind. She began to smoke too, and they were quiet for a while.
“Valerie, I want you to think about marrying me,” he said very softly, at length.
“I can’t avoid thinking about it now,” she answered, but her tone was not as compliant as it might have been.
“I want to know just one thing more to-night. Is it anything about me that you’re afraid of?” He looked into her face as he said it.
“Why, I love you, Dane. I couldn’t possibly love you if I were afraid of you.”
“You’re quite sure? It’s not personal at all?”
“No, it is not! Good heavens! What is the matter with this world that nobody ever can believe that I have a principle, an idea I want to live by! I’m not the first woman in the world who didn’t want to marry, and yet everybody treats me as if I were. I’m not the first woman to say I want a career and a lover instead of husband and
