She smiled faintly.
"If we——"
"Oh, yes," he said, calmly, "if we are to pass the balance of our existence in combined research, it would be rather necessary for us to marry."
"Do you mind?"
"On the contrary. Do you?"
"Not in the least. Do you really mean it? It wouldn't be disagreeable, would it? You are above marrying for mere sentiment, aren't you? Because, somehow, I seem to know you like me.... And it would be death for me—a mental death—to go back now to—to Stirrups——"
"Where?"
"To—why do you ask? Couldn't you take me on faith?"
He said, unsteadily: "If you rose up out of the silvery lagoon, just born from the starlight and the mist, I would take you."
"You—you are a poet, too," she faltered. "You seem to be about everything desirable."[56]