"But why not, Dodo?"
"Oh, not marriage! I hate the very word!" she said indignantly. "That would spoil everything! I want to be Dodo! I don't want to change. And you want to make me! What would happen? After a while you would want me to be like your formal women, society women, and I should be bored, or you would get tired of me. And then my heart would break!"
"But, great God! child, haven't you any morality?" he exclaimed, beyond himself. "Have I always got to protect you against yourself?"
"Is it my morality," she said, opening her eyes, "or what society will think of you, that you are worried about?"
He was silent, without an answer.
"Listen!" she continued determinedly. "This must stop! I said I was going to decide everything on the tenth. I'm not! I can't stand it! To-morrow I'm going to settle everything. Do you love me enough to run away with me to-morrow?"
"Do you really, honestly, in the bottom of your crazy romantic heart, believe you would do such a thing?" he asked solemnly.
She was instantly a-tremble with an electric ardor.
"Would I? Would I sacrifice this for something real, something immense, for a perfect blinding love? Oh, how can you ask!"
"And if I come to-morrow and say 'Come!' you will leave everything and go with me, anywhere?"