"Noel!" There was keen disappointment in her voice. "Why isn't it practicable?"
He let her hands go, and reached out, drawing her to him. "Don't tempt me, sweetheart!" he said softly. "I'm hound enough as it is to dream of letting you join your life to mine under present conditions. But this other is out of the question. I simply won't do it, dear, so don't ask me!"
"But why not?" she pleaded very earnestly. "I have told you I wish it."
He smiled—a smile that was very tender and yet whimsical also. "So like you, darling," he said. "But it can't be done. There are always chances to be taken in a serious operation; but I don't mean to take more than I can help. I'm not going to chance making you a widow almost before you are a wife."
"Oh, but, Noel—" she protested.
"Yes, really, darling. It's my final word on the subject. We will be married just as soon after the operation as can be decently managed. But not before it, sweetheart. Any fellow who let you do that would be a cur of the lowest degree."
He was holding her in his arms with the words. Her head was against his shoulder. A man had entered the conservatory behind them from an adjoining room, lounging in with his feet in carpet slippers that made no sound.
"And suppose—" it was Olga's voice very low and quivering—"suppose the operation doesn't succeed,—shall you—shall you refuse to marry me then?"
"Not much," said Noel cheerily. "If I'm alive and kicking, I shall want you all the more. No!" He caught himself up sharply. "I don't mean that! I couldn't want you more. Ill or well, I should want you just the same. I only meant—" his voice grew subtly softer, he spoke with great tenderness, his lips moving against her forehead—"I only meant that 'the desert were a paradise, if thou wert there, if thou wert there.'"
She raised her head quickly. There were tears in her eyes. "Noel, how strange that you should say that!"