“Then you said nothing to him about last evening.”
“No, Sadie, I could not take such a liberty without your permission.”
“Ah,” sighed the girl, with evident relief, “you did give me a fright when I learned you had gone to my uncle’s room so early in the morning, and when you stayed so long.”
“Don’t you want me to speak of our engagement, then?”
“There is no engagement. You were so boisterous standing there by the piano that I had to say ‘Yes’ to release myself, otherwise my uncle would have come in upon a fine tableau.”
“I hope you are not going back upon that ‘Yes,’” said the young man earnestly.
For a few moments the girl did not answer. She seemed in an uncertain temper that morning, and rather inclined to pout, yet to the ardent young man she appeared more entrancing than ever.
“I am going neither back nor forward,” she said at last. “I desire to remain just where I am. I am not sure of myself. I think you took an unfair advantage of my dilemma last evening with your obstreperousness; and there are many reasons why I should not wish to be bound by the answer you forced me to give.”
“You shall not be bound,” replied John very seriously; “everything must be exactly as you wish it to be. You, doubtless, have been and will be sought by lovers richer than I, but you will never find one more devoted to you.”
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of riches,” explained the girl petulantly; then after a pause she added: “though I may as well confess I am quite unsuited to be a poor man’s wife. The cottage with roses clambering over it looks very beautiful in a painting, and a description of it reads well in a magazine story, but when I was a small girl, I endured the reality of poverty and I don’t want any more of it. I suppose you think that very sordid?”