"No, there are no lucid intervals. At this moment I am obsessed by a fear of the perils of the sea."
"That is odd, considering that you are not going to sea. Are you?"
"No; but you are—and she. Is she with you now?"
"No; she is in her room writing a letter to her father, the first she has ever written to him. A little sad, is it not? I am in my dressing room, quite comfortable, thank you, with my elbows on my writing desk; and so there is no danger of interruption. What is it you wish to tell me, John? Or ask me, perhaps?"
"It is something both to tell you and to ask you. In about an hour from now I want to ask Louise if she will marry me. That's the telling. The asking is this: Would that be a fair thing to do?"
"Such Druid-like deliberation! You speak, John, as if you were leading up to asking one for a cup of tea!"
"Do I? Well, I am mindful of this somewhat open medium of communication. Believe me, I feel anything but deliberate. But my question: Would it be fair?"
"How could it possibly be viewed as anything else but fair?"
"Because the circumstances are unusual. In the first place, I am almost the only man she knows—that she has had a chance to know. Then, I am her guardian. Would it not be rather presumptuous, not to say downright unfair, for me to take advantage of these things?"
"That, I think, is what might be called an obliquely conscientious view, John."