"Oh! ... Did I squall, really?"
"Squall? Sometimes it was tummy and sometimes it was temper. Between them you yelled like a Comanche," said this astonishing lover.
Mary Virginia tilted her head back, adorably.
"It was very, very noble of you to mind me—under the circumstances," she conceded, graciously.
"Believe me, it was," agreed Laurence. "I didn't know it, of course, but even at that tender age my fate was upon me, for I liked to mind you. Even the bawling didn't daunt me, and I adored you when you resembled a squab. Yes, I was in love with you then. I'm in love with you now. My girl, my own girl, I'll go out of this world and into the next one loving you."
"Then why," she asked reproachfully, "haven't you said so?"
"Why haven't I said what?"
"Why, you know. That you—loved me, Laurence." Her rich voice had sunk to a whisper.
"Good Lord, haven't I been saying it?"
"No, you haven't! You've been merely asking me to marry you. But you haven't said a word about loving me, until this very minute!"