"But I am going to have you!" he cried, insistently. "You are going to be my wife," He repeated the words softly, reverently: "My wife."
She gazed up at him with a puzzled little frown. "What bothers me is that you understand me and my life so well, while I scarcely understand you or yours at all. That seems to tell me that I am unsuited to you in some way. Why, when you told me that story of your hardships and all that, I listened as if it were a play or a book, but really it didn't mean anything to me or stir me as it should. I can't understand my own failure to understand. That awful country, those barbarous people, the suffering, the cold, the snow, the angry sea; I don't grasp what they mean. I was never cold, or hungry, or exhausted. I—well, it is fascinating to hear about, because you went through it, but why you did it, how you felt"—she made a gesture as if at a loss for words. "Do you see what I am trying to convey?"
"Perfectly," he answered, releasing her with a little unadmitted sense of disappointment at his heart. "I suppose it is only natural."
"I do hope you succeed this time," she continued. "I am growing deadly tired of things. Not tired of waiting for you, but I am getting to be old; I am, indeed. Why, at times I actually have an inclination to do fancy-work—the unfailing symptom. Do you realize that I am twenty-five years old!"
"Age of decrepitude! And more glorious than any woman in the world!" he cried.
There was a click outside the library door, and the room, which unnoticed by them had become nearly dark, was suddenly flooded with light. The portieres parted, and Wayne Wayland stood in the opening.
"Ah, here you are, my boy! Hawkins told me you had returned."
He advanced to shake the young man's hand, his demeanor gracious and hearty. "Welcome home. You have been having quite a vacation, haven't you? Let's see, it's two years, isn't it?"
"Three years!" Emerson replied.
"Impossible! Dear, dear, how time flies when one is busy."