"It seems to me," interrupted Katharine, "that you don't want a wife at all; you only want an audience."
"I don't think," said Paul, smiling indulgently, "that we need quarrel about terms, need we? Well, as I was saying, my career would probably continue to take care of itself, even if there were two of us to be asked out to dinner, instead of one. And that disposes of the second obstacle, doesn't it? The third and last—"
"Last? There are millions of others!"
"The third and last," resumed Paul, "was, I think, the trifling fact that I had once presumed to call you a prig, in consequence of which you chose to pretend you were afraid of me. Wasn't that so?"
"Afraid of you? What a ridiculous idea!" she exclaimed. "Why, I was never afraid of you in my life!"
"Which disposes of the third and last difficulty," said Paul promptly.
Katharine stamped her foot and walked on in front of him.
"You don't seem to think," she said, "that I might not want to marry you."
"Oh, no," said Paul; "I don't."
She said no more, but continued to walk a little way in front of him so that he could not see her face. She only spoke once again on their way down to the boat.