"But could you never learn to love me?"
She laughed her girlish, ringing laugh.
"I am not so backward as all that," she said. "I mastered it in a dozen lessons."
He stared at her, a wild hope kindling in his eyes. "Did I hear aright?" he asked in a horse tone.
She nodded, still smiling.
"Then I did not hear aright before?"
"Oh, yes, you did. I said I did not love you a little. I love you a great deal."
There were tears in the gray eyes now, but they smiled on. He caught her in his arms and the Devonshire lane was transformed to Eden. How exquisite this angelic frankness, when the words pleased! How delicious the frankness of her caress when words were de trop!
But at last she spoke again. "And now that I know you love me for myself, I will tell you a secret." The little hands that had first clasped his attention were laid on his shoulders, the dreamy face looked up tenderly and proudly into his. "They say a woman cannot keep a secret," she said. "But you will never believe that again, when I tell you mine?"
"I never believed it," he said earnestly. "Consider how every woman keeps the great secret of her age."