"Well?" he said, with the slightest tremor.
"Only he hasn't said anything yet."
He moved restlessly. It was all so sad. Yet it was best so. Once he knew her to be beyond his reach he could bring to an end his foolish dream.
"I wonder how I shall begin to tell you my romance," she resumed. "Society has done so many evil things in the name of formality. It has laid down impossible and inhuman rules, destroying freedom of thought and action. To these rules we must conform or be ostracized. Might a woman tell a man she loves him, John?"
"That depends wholly upon her knowledge that he loves her."
"So if a woman knows that a man loves her she may, in the pursuit of happiness, tell that man?"
"I see no reason why not. To love is natural. Love is stronger than logic, stronger than formality. But this should always be borne in mind: for a woman to propose to a man, the man must be her equal in all things—wealth of mind and wealth of purse."
"Oh, now you are going back to the conventionality of things," she protested. "How I hate conventional mediocrity! I have hated it ever since I came to this horrid city. Don't you sometimes long for the old days, John: the sermons in stones, the good in everything?"
"Yes, sometimes."
"Well, I am going back to the old village in the spring. John," softly, "why didn't you answer my letter?"