A lovely color was deepening in her cheeks, and her eyes drooped shyly. He broke right into the subject at once while he had the courage to do it.
“I have something to say to you, Pluma,” he began, leading her to an adjacent sofa and seating himself beside her. “I want to ask you if you will be my wife.” He looked perhaps the more confused of the two. “I will do my best to make you happy,” he continued. “I can not say that I will make a model husband, but I will say I will do my best.”
There was a minute’s silence, awkward enough for both.
“You have asked me to be your wife, Rex, but you have not said one word of loving me.”
The remark was so unexpected Rex seemed for a few moments to be unable to reply to it. Looking at the eager, expectant face turned toward him, it appeared ungenerous and unkind not to give her one affectionate word. Yet he did not 133 know how to say it; he had never spoken a loving word to any one except Daisy, his fair little child-bride.
He tried hard to put the memory of Daisy away from him as he answered:
“The question is so important that most probably I have thought more of it than of any words which should go with it.”
“Oh, that is it,” returned Pluma, with a wistful little laugh. “Most men, when they ask women to marry them, say something of love, do they not?”
“Yes,” he replied, absently.
“You have had no experience,” laughed Pluma, archly.