"Do you mean it, Silvette?"
"About your parents?"
"Yes."
"Yes, I do, Jack."
He said, partly to himself: "I had not noticed it."
"I have. It's a woman's business to notice such things. Otherwise, she'll find herself in trouble.... Inclination is a silly guide, Jack."
"For me?"
"For—us both.... I will be frank with you all the way through. I do like you. I enjoy our tête-à-têtes. They are perfectly honest and harmless, and without significance—the significance, alas, that others will surely attach to them.... It isn't that there's anything wrong with you and me, Jack.... It's the World that is wrong.... But—it's the World; and you and I must conform to its prejudices as long as we inhabit it—at least I must."
"I suppose you must," he said. Then, leaning a little nearer, he took her hand, held it lightly across his palm, looked at it a moment, then at her.
"Will you let me tell father and mother that I am in love with you, and wish to marry you?" he said.