"Christine," he announced resolutely, "I am going to marry you when you are old enough."
She gasped. "But, David—" she began, tremulous with doubt and perplexity.
"I know," he said as she hesitated; "you are afraid I'll not be cleared of this charge. But I am sure to be—as sure as there is a God. Then, when you are nineteen or twenty, I mean to ask you to be my wife. You are my sweetheart now—oh, my dearest sweet-heart! Christine, you won't let any one else come in and take my place? You'll be just as you are now until we are older and—"
"Wait, David! Let me think. I—I could be your wife, couldn't I? I am a Portman. I am good enough to—to be what you want me to be, am I not, David? You understand, don't you? Mother says I am a Portman. I am not common and vulgar, am I, David? I—"
"I couldn't love you if you were that, Christine. You are fit to be the wife of a—a king," he concluded eagerly.
"I have learned so much from you," she said, so softly he could barely hear the words.
"It's the other way round. You've taught me a thousand times more than you ever could learn from me," he protested. "I'm nobody. I've never seen anything of life."
"You are the most wonderful person in all this world—not even excepting the princes in the Arabian Nights."
"I'm only a boy," he said.
"I wouldn't love you if you were a man," she announced promptly. "David, I must tell mother that—that you have kissed me. You won't mind, will you?"