"You should."
I could not follow her thought. "I kissed you once before," I ventured.
"Many times before."
"No, only once. The other times were when we were children. They don't count."
"Do things that happened when we were children not count—with you?"
"Do they—with you?"
"Ask me, and see."
It had come; the moment of which I had told myself in dreams and visions; the moment to which I had looked forward with a strange fear and a great hope. "Jean," I whispered. "I love you. Will you be my wife?"
As I write the words they seem very bare and matter-of-fact. But they were all that Jean required. She made no spoken answer, but she turned her face to mine, and I drew her up in my strong arms and kissed her in the breathless passion of our young love. . . . .
After a time, with one box serving us both, we talked of our future. I hinted that circumstances made our immediate marriage somewhat dependent upon the course that Jack and Marjorie might elect to follow. I took it for granted that Jack and Marjorie would marry, but I was very vague in my idea as to when this would happen.