"Are you so afraid of change you wouldn't risk beginning over again--with me?"
Felicia's sewing dropped in her lap and her blue eyes opened wide with surprise and consternation as she looked up to meet his dark, eager eyes.
"Stephen!"
"Well? Is it so impossible to conceive? Haven't you guessed I was going to ask it sooner or later?"
"No. Oh, Stephen, I wish you hadn't."
"Why? I don't expect the same kind of love you gave Syd. You couldn't give it, of course. That is past. But you are too young to have life stop altogether for you--too young and too lovely. Other men will ask it if I don't, and I--well, I want to get in ahead." He laughed boyishly, but his eyes, which were grave enough, never left her face. "Is there any reason you couldn't say yes?" he asked.
"I am afraid there are many. One of them--rather two of them--are out under the tree at present."
His gaze followed her gesture.
"Are they really a reason? I love the kiddies and they like me. Surely it would be no injustice nor detriment to them. Why should it?"
"Not to them--rather to you--to any man I married. They are a very piece of me. They are me. If there ever came to be a decision between them and--well, call the man you--I should decide for them. Is that fair to you? Would you risk it?"