“You’re ashamed of me! Jo wouldn’t ask Marta to go far away. Your’s is a little love—a love that doesn’t dare venture on an uncharted sea.”
“Pen,” he said tensely, “I tell you that I love you! Don’t you understand?”
He put his arm about her—bent down.
There was a quiet reproach in her star-like eyes as she drew away.
“Pen, will you be my wife?”
She put her hand to her forehead with an odd little motion. Her paleness became a pallor.
“You ask me that—you would—”
“Yes, I would. I did fight it. I didn’t really know you until to-night. You’ve been unreadable. Now I feel you are your real self. Not the daredevil who defied me and mocked me. Not the little meek mouse on the hearth. I love the woman you are to-night.”
“Am I like her—the best woman in the world?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he cried triumphantly. “And you will grow more and more like her—the type of woman I want you to be. Don’t you care for me—a little, Pen?”