"And I don't sail till the sixth of July. Loads of time."
"But I always meant to earn my living for a few years after I graduated, before—"
"I wouldn't have stood for that, Peggy, not if I was making enough to take care of you, and I shall be."
Peggy was breathing fast. It was hard to realize that she and Graham were sitting there in the McLaughlin dining-room, discussing the question of whether or not they should be married in July. For except on one memorable occasion, when Graham had been on the point of going across and Peggy had been ready to marry him at a moment's notice, she had felt about her marriage much as her mother did, as if it belonged to the misty, distant, indeterminate future. And now the six months she had assured herself was a long time had dwindled down almost to nothing. July! It was incredibly, overwhelmingly near.
"We'll have to see what father and mother think." She tried to make her voice matter-of-fact, but it had an unnatural tension. Graham on the other side of the little table, nodded agreement.
"Of course we'll see what they think. But we know they can say only one thing. It's such a reasonable solution that only one opinion is possible. Don't you like your dessert, Peggy? Won't you have some ice-cream?"
Peggy protested she liked her desert, and finished it without tasting a morsel. Then they went home and proceeded to bomb the peaceful Raymond household with Graham's astounding proposition. And while Mrs. Raymond began by pronouncing it out of the question, before the evening ended she was driven to admit the reasonableness of Graham's plan. It was true that Peggy's marriage would follow rather closely on the heels of her graduation, but thanks to common-sense hours of sleep, and an abundance of outdoor exercise, she had come through her four years' college course in radiant health. A separation of two years just now would be hard for both, and especially for Graham. Indeed Graham frankly declared that he would not go without Peggy, and yet to refuse such a chance was to prejudice his future success.
When Peggy went to bed that night she knew the whole thing was settled. To be sure, both her father and mother had warned her against a hasty decision, insisting that she take plenty of time to think the matter over. But Peggy knew what the final verdict would be, and she was sure Graham also knew it, by the triumph in his eyes as he kissed her good night.
Changes! She lay in her little white bed and thought of the new life opening before her, strange countries, unfamiliar tongues, alien customs, even the dear, friendly constellations replaced by unknown stars. And the queerest part of all was that she herself would no longer be Peggy Raymond, but a strange young woman, Margaret Wylie by name. Peggy gave a little incredulous laugh. It was astonishing how the world had turned upside down since morning.