The look of resolution had gone; the look of melancholy had come in its place.
“I know we can’t marry right away,” she went on. “I’ve got a lot to do, first. You are poor in one way, and I in another. We’ve got to wait and work.” She looked up at him, smiling, pleading, her hand touching his arm. “Don’t you think it’s worth doing, dear?”
He dropped to a chair. “I’ve fooled myself,” he said gloomily. “I thought I was coming here to give you up. Instead, I came to get you.”
She laughed merrily, her delicate hand tingling as it touched his shock of hair that grew in such disorderly fashion yet exactly suited the superb contour of his head. Said she:
“Well, you’ve got what you came for.”
He smiled grimly. “How am I going to think straight and do what’s right for both of us, with you touching me?”
“You don’t want me to touch you?”
With a strong sweeping gesture, he drew her against him, as she stood beside him, he sitting.
“You know we might as well say we’re going to wait for each other,” proceeded she. It is astonishing—and enlightening—how well women argue when they wish to. “You know we’ll do it, anyhow. You won’t marry any other woman?”
“There isn’t but one woman for me,” said he, with an accent that thrilled her.