"I wouldn't care if you did," he answered. "It's the indirect influence I'm thinking of—the indirect influence that a beautiful, pure-hearted, noble-minded woman spreads around her wherever she goes. I know what it has done for me. And I know that not only my little micks, but every teacher and every superintendent in that school would be inspired, and stimulated, and born again so soon as ever you set foot in the building. Men need good women, Miss Dearborn. Men who are doing the work of the world. I believe in women as I believe in Christ. But I don't believe they were made—any more than Christ was—to cultivate—beyond a certain point—their own souls, and refine their own minds, and live in a sort of warmed-over, dilettante, stained-glass world of seclusion and exclusion. No, sir, that won't do for the United States and the men who are making them the greatest nation of the world. The men have got all the get-up-and-get they want, but they need the women to point them straight, and to show them how to lead that other kind of life that isn't all grind. Since I've known you, Miss Dearborn, I've just begun to wake up to the fact that there is that other kind, but I can't lead that life without you. There's no kind of life that's worth anything to me now that don't include you. I don't need to tell you that I want you to marry me. You know that by now, I guess, without any words from me. I love you, and I love you as a man, not as a boy, seriously and earnestly. I can give you no idea how seriously, how earnestly. I want you to be my wife. Laura, my dear girl, I know I could make you happy."
"It isn't," answered Laura slowly, perceiving as he paused that he expected her to say something, "much a question of that."
"What is it, then? I won't make a scene. Don't you love me? Don't you think, my girl, you could ever love me?"
Laura hesitated a long moment. She had taken the rose from her shoulder, and plucking the petals one by one, put them delicately between her teeth. From the other end of the room came the clamorous exhortations of Monsieur Gerardy. Mrs. Cressler and the Gretry girl watched the progress of the rehearsal attentively from the doorway of the dining-room. Aunt Wess' and Mr. Cressler were discussing psychic research and seances, on the sofa on the other side of the room. After a while Laura spoke.
"It isn't that either," she said, choosing her words carefully.
"What is it, then?"
"I don't know—exactly. For one thing, I don't think I want to be married, Mr. Jadwin—to anybody."
"I would wait for you."
"Or to be engaged."
"But the day must come, sooner or later, when you must be both engaged and married. You must ask yourself some time if you love the man who wishes to be your husband. Why not ask yourself now?"