"Oh! Is that the reason?" She laughed, sprang lightly to her feet, stood looking down at him. He got up, slowly.
"I bring you," she said, "six hundred dollars a year. And a little more. Which sweeps away that obstacle. Doesn't it?"
"I could not ask you to live on that——"
"I can live on what you live on! I should wish to. It would make me utterly and supremely happy."[57]
Her flushed, young face confronted his as she took a short, eager step toward him.
"I am not making love to you," she said, "—at least, I don't think I am. All I desire is to help—to give you myself—my youth, energy, ambition, intelligence—and what I have—which is of no use to me unless it is useful to you. Won't you take these things from me?"
"Do you give me your heart, too, Cecil?"
She smiled faintly, knowing now that she had already given it. She did not answer, but her under lip trembled, and she caught it between her teeth as he took her hands and kissed them in silence.[58]
