"And there I wouldn't stay!" says Addie, impetuously. "I'd make her say 'Yes' or 'No,' and have done with it at once."
"If I did so, it would be 'No' at once, and—and—" with a quiver in his voice—"I don't think I could bear that. I love your sister, Mrs. Armstrong, better than my life; so I would rather go on clinging to a straw, hang on to her patiently, and perhaps in the end work her into liking me. They say love begets love, don't they? If so, she must in time take a spark from me."
"And how long do you intend going on burning?"
"Until she is twenty. She says that she won't make up her mind to marry any one until she has seen a little of the world, that many girls sacrifice their life's happiness by taking the first man that asks them, that she, even herself, in her limited experience, has seen too much of the misery of hasty and incongruous marriages to risk a mistake herself—Eh—what's the matter? Dropped your scissors, Mrs. Armstrong? Why, here they are beside you! So she won't accept any one until she is twenty; however, I'll wait and watch, and nag and worry her for two years more, and you'll put in a word for me now and then, won't you, both of you? She'll never get any one to love her as well as I do; and I'm not badly off, Mrs. Armstrong. Your husband here can look into my affairs, prod my property as much as he likes; he'll find it in paying order, swept and garnished for matrimony, drained and fenced, and—"
"I do not doubt it, Mr. Everard," breaks in Addie, earnestly; "and I do not mind admitting that both my husband and I—is it not so, Tom?—quite approve your suit and wish you good speed; but I do not approve of your resolution to hang on to Pauline by the careless thread of hope she offers. You may only reap much misery and disappointment in the future. She knows you love her—you have told her so. I would leave her, let her go her own way during the time she specifies; and then, if you are of the same mind still, renew your offer, propose for the fifteenth and last time."
"Mrs. Armstrong, were you ever in love?"
"In—in—love!" she stammers with crimson face. "In love!" She makes a mighty effort to give a light evasive answer; but a lump in her throat stifles her utterance.
Her husband comes to the rescue with cheerful tact.
"My dear Everard," he says, in mock indignation, "will you please remember that I am a man and a husband? If you press the question home, allow me time to vanish at least from—"
"Beg pardon, I'm sure," the young man mutters, in some confusion. "I did not know what I was saying. What a duffer I am, to be sure, always blurting out the wrong thing at the wrong moment. Forgive me, Mrs. Armstrong, I assure you I never—"