“Is it so striking as all that? Then I am sorry I can give you but fifteen minutes of it, for my uncle is taking me out to dinner, and man-like he is late, having just arrived home and gone upstairs to dress.”
“Fifteen minutes! What is it the poet says of fifteen minutes as compared with a cycle of Cathay? Fifteen minutes, Sadie, with you, is worth an eternity with any one else on earth. Why, bless my soul, the Declaration of Independence was signed in ten!”
Again the girl laughed, trying, not very strenuously, to disengage her hands.
“Do you wish me to sign a declaration of independence?” she asked.
“Yes, a declaration of independence from all the world except me.”
“In other words, a declaration of dependence on you rather than independence of the rest?” she corrected.
“Sadie, I’ve adored you ever since I met you. The picture on canvas that I spoke of is impossible, for there is not genius enough existent to do it justice. But there is a picture I ask you to look at,” and he swung her round almost rudely until she saw the reflection of two young people holding each other’s hands in the tall pier-glass.
“If you appreciate that Princess as she deserves, you will wonder at the conceit of the man standing beside her, that he dares to ask for the original.”
Sadie looked at her counterpart with a certain complacency, for doubtless she was a girl who had received many proposals, and was not to be swept from her feet even by one so impetuous as this. But that she was gratified by the young man’s earnestness, one needed but a glance at her sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks to see. She turned from the glass to him.
“Is it the girl from New York or the gown from Paris you so warmly admire?”