"A compact?"
"Yes. It will seem to other people like the common one. They'll call it marriage. It may be, we'll live a lifetime together without doing the ill you most dread doing. But if—if the worst comes to the worst, we will have had one perfect year."
"What do you mean, Val?" He seized her wrists.
"It's more than every man and woman gets," she cried.
"And then?"
"Then, according to the compact, we will go out together before—before we've opened the door—to another." With a broken cry she flung herself on his breast.
"Hush, hush, child! this is all—" His eyes were full of tears.
"You'll see it is the only way. No one but ourselves will pay for our being glad a little while."
"Glad! Do you think you could be glad, poor child, with such an end forever before your eyes?"
"Hasn't all the world that end in view? Aren't many of us glad in spite of all?" She smiled up into his face. "But can't you see that I'd rather be sad with you, than be glad with any other?"