The frowning perplexity deepened in the young woman's face. "You surely don't misunderstand me?" she pleaded. "You don't think I'm mercenary or anything horrid like that? Suppose I do make a man's aptitude for gratifying my eight particular whims the supreme test of his marital attractiveness for me—it's not, you must understand, by the sign of his material ability in the matter that I should recognize the Man Who Was Made for Me—but by the sign of his spiritual willingness."
"O—h!" said Guthrie very leisurely. Then, with a trifle more vigor, he picked up the small list again and scanned it carefully.
"It—wouldn't—be—such—a hard—list to—fulfil!" he resumed presently. "'A summer in the mountains?' You're having that now. 'Oxford?' 'Glimpse of Naples?' 'Cloud Picture?' 'Surgical Operation?' 'Pink Sash?' 'Good Dinner?' 'Christmas?' Why there's really nothing here that I couldn't provide for you, myself, if you'd only give me time."
With mischievous unconcern he smiled at the young woman. With equally mischievous unconcern the young woman smiled back at him.
"What an extraordinary conversation we've had this morning," she said. As though quite exhausted by the uniqueness of it, she slid a little further down into her seat and turned her cheek against the firm support of the chair-back.
"What an extraordinary understanding it has brought us to!" exclaimed the man, scanning her closely.
"I don't see anything particularly—understandy about it," denied the young woman wearily.
It was then that Donas Guthrie asked his simple question, boring his khaki-colored elbows into his khaki-colored knees.
"Little Psychology Teacher," he said very gently, "Little Psychology Teacher, Dr. Andrews says that you've got typhoid fever. He's feared it now for some time, and you know it's against his orders—your being up to-day. So as long as I've proved myself here and now, by your own test, the Man-Whom-You-Were-Looking-For, I suggest that you and I be—married this afternoon—before that itinerant shiny-shouldered preacher out in the corral escapes us altogether—and then we'll send the rest of the party on about their business, and you and Dr. Andrews and Hanlon's Mary and I will camp right down here where we are—and scrap the old typhoid fever to its finish. Will you, Little Psychology Teacher?"
Lifting her white hands to her throbbing temples the young woman turned her astonished face jerkily toward him.