"Most adorable," Abbott answered, as if he had been waiting for the prompting. "Most precious. Most bewitchingly sweet. Most unanswerably and eternally—Fran!"
"And you—" she whispered.
"And I," he told her, "am nothing but most wanting-to-be-loved."
"It's so queer," Fran said, plaintively. "You know, Abbott, how long you've fought against me. You know it, and I don't blame you, not in the least. There's nothing about me to make people….But even now, how can you think you understand me, when I don't understand myself?"
"I don't," he said, promptly. "I've given up trying to understand you.
Since then, I've just loved. That's easy."
"What will people think of a superintendent of public schools caring for a show-girl, even if she is Fran Nonpareil. How would it affect your career?"
"But you have promised never again to engage in a show, so you are not a show-girl."
"What about my mother who lived and died as a lion-tamer? What will you do about my life-history? I'd never speak to a man who could feel ashamed of my mother. What about my father who has never publicly acknowledged me? I'd not want to have anything to do with a man who— who could be proud of him."
"As to the past, Fran, I have only this to say: whatever hardships it contained, whatever wrongs or wretchedness—it evolved you, you, the Fran of to-day—the Fran of this living hour. And it's the Fran of this living hour that I want to marry."
Fran covered her face with her hands. For a while there was silence, then she said: