The answer came quickly.
"Yes. But I'm so glad you didn't!"
"I, too," he confessed. And then, "I think that's all."
There was a complete silence for half a minute, while he struggled to find words to say to this most lovely woman. He could find none. Each knew the other's heart already, and words seemed vain and meaningless. "Oh, Beatrice darling!" he said, almost with a sob, "don't keep me waiting any longer! I want you! I want you!"
"Lal, dearest!" she said.
"And this is the end," she said presently with a little sigh. "We shall just get married and settle into stodgy conventional people. It sounds flat, doesn't it?"
"Why should it be the end? We can be happy and ourselves, too. We can still have romance, adventures, though youth passes——"
She shook her head.
"No; we shall have happiness, but never the same as this. We have been lucky and had the most splendid fun. But now, whether we wish it or not, we shall have to grow up and try to find out what life is."