"You are right. But yours is a point of view the modern girl seldom takes. First she discusses ways and means. Love, self respect—these she considers quite negligible."
She protested.
"Not all girls—only some girls. They are foolish virgins who leave their lamps untrimmed. They sow folly to-day only to reap unhappiness to-morrow."
He said nothing and for a few moments they both stood there in the increasing darkness. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, his voice broken by emotion, he turned to her and said:
"I am tired of being alone. I have met the woman with whom I could be happy, the woman who can help me to do big things. Helen, I want you to be my wife."
She made no answer. She felt herself growing pale. A strange tremor passed through her entire body.
He came closer and took her unresisting hand.
"Helen," he whispered, "I want you for my wife."
Still no reply, but her small delicate hand remained clasped in his big, strong one, and gradually he drew her toward him until she was so close in his embrace that he could feel her panting breath on his cheek.
A strange thrill passed through him as he came in contact with her soft, yielding body. She never wore corsets, preferring the clinging Grecian style of gowns that showed graceful lines and left the figure free, and her form, slender yet firm and delicately chiseled like that of some sculptured goddess, had none of that voluptuous grossness which mars the symmetry of many women, otherwise beautiful.