"Oh, you can keep a secret. I don't know that I want to tell you."
"Very well."
"Oh, well, it would be beastly ungrateful in me not to. I have had a hint that, not having de-Americanized myself formally when I came of age, I may still be an American citizen. Judge Leslie has advised me to go to Washington and find out, and I am going. Are you really so interested?"
"Oh yes," said Isabel, softly. "I am interested! I have been afraid you might become discouraged and disgusted. Four more years would be a long time. Are you glad?"
"I don't know whether I am or not. When it comes to taking the oath of allegiance to the United States—if that is sprung on me in Washington—I shall feel more like taking the next steamer for England and making my oaths there. It is a little too sudden."
"All this hesitation and doubt are natural enough until you are settled down, and become too accustomed to the country to think of anything else—"
"I accept the balm. But I have less hesitation than you imagine—whatever the doubt and disgust. And I really believe the secret of my unrest is you! Good heavens! Do I love you—already—that would be the last straw!"
He was staring at her, and something in his face blinded her. She turned cold from head to foot; but she moved her glance to the baskets on the mantel-shelf, and replied, quietly:
"It will take some time for you to know whether you are in love again or not. You have seen me too constantly—barring the last month. I have become in many ways necessary to you. When you move to San Francisco, as I am convinced you will, and have many other resources——propinquity is all there is to ninth-tenths of what we call love——and then a little more kills it! Even if I were under the same delusion as you are I should not yield to it."
"I do love you," he said, as slowly and clearly as he was capable of enunciating. But his voice was hoarse, and she was sensible, without turning her head, that he was rigid. "It is different—quite different. I am willing to wait, however. I understand your hesitation. When I return—"