"Now, Miss Asher," continued Locker, "I have tried, very imperfectly, I know, to make you see me as I really am, and I do hope you can put an end to this suspense which is keeping me in a nervous tingle. I can not sleep at night, and all day I am thinking what you will say when you do decide. You need not be afraid to speak out before Miss Raleigh. She is in with us now, and she can't get out. I would not press you for an answer at this moment, but there are reasons which I can not say anything about without meddling with other people's business. But my business with you is the happiness of my life, and I feel that I can not longer endure having it momentarily jeopardized."
At the conclusion of this speech a faint color actually stole into Miss Raleigh's face, and she clasped her thin hands in the intensity of her approval.
"Mr. Locker," said Olive, speaking very pleasantly, "if you had come to me to-day and had asked me for a decision based upon what you had already said to me, I think I might have settled the matter. But after what you have just told me, I can not answer you now. You give me things to think about, and I must wait."
"Heavens" exclaimed Mr. Locker, clasping his hands. "Am I not yet to know whether I am to rise into paradise, or to sink into the infernal regions?"
Olive smiled. "Don't do either, Mr. Locker," she said. "This earth is a very pleasant place. Stay where you are."
He folded his arms and gazed at her. "It is a pleasant place," said he, "and I am mighty glad I got in my few remarks before you made your decision. I leave my love with you on approbation, and you may be sure I shall come to-morrow before luncheon to hear what you say about it."
"I shall expect you," said Olive. And as she spoke her eyes were full of kind consideration.
"Now, that's genuine," said Miss Raleigh, when Locker had departed. "If he had not felt every word he said he could not have said it before me."
"No doubt you are right," said Olive. "He is very brave. And now you see this new line, which begins an entirely different kind of stitch!"
In the middle distance Mr. Du Brant still strolled backward and forward, pulverizing his teeth and swearing in French. He seldom removed his eyes from Miss Asher, but still she sat on that bench and crocheted, and talked, and talked, and crocheted, with that everlasting Miss Raleigh! He had seen Locker with her, and he had seen him go; and now he hoped that the woman would soon depart. Then it would be his chance.