"You might as well say it is not always the easiest path! Mine is a very hard life, so far as work is concerned, you know. I toil early and late. But how can you be so awfully trite, Mr. Trent? I did not expect it of you."
"A good deal of life is rather trite," said Oliver. "I know only one thing that can preserve it from commonplaceness and dullness and dreariness."
"And that is——"
A little silence fell on both of them. Oliver's voice had sunk almost to a whisper: Ethel's cheeks had grown suddenly very hot.
"Love makes everything easy and beautiful. Does not your poet say so—the man whose play you have acted in to-night? Ethel, why don't you try the experiment?—the experiment of loving?"
"I do try it," she said, laughing, and trying to regain her lost lightness of tone. "I love Maurice and Mrs. Durant and hosts of people."
"Add one more to the list," said Oliver. "Love me."
"You?" she said, doubtingly. "I am not sure whether you are a person to be loved."
"Oh, yes, I am. Seriously, Ethel, may I speak to your brother? May I hope that you can love me a little, and that you will some day be my wife?"