"I would have you,—I would have you——" And then there was something like a sob. It was quite real. "I would have you tell me—that you—love me."
"Have I not told you so a score of times; and what has come of it?"
"But is it true?"
"Come, Guss, this is simple folly. You know it is true; and you know, also, that there is no good whatever to be got from such truth."
"If you loved me, you would like—to—see me."
"No, I shouldn't;—no, I don't;—unless it could lead to something. There was a little fun to be had when we could spoon together,—when I hardly knew how to ask for it, and you hardly knew how to grant it; when it was a little shooting bud, and had to be nursed by smiles and pretty speeches. But there are only three things it can come to now. Two are impossible, and therefore there is the other."
"What are the three?"
"We might get married."
"Well?"
"One of the three I shall not tell you. And we might—make up