"We are likely to have all kinds of obligations," she interrupted serenely, "and our lives are certain to be very full, and you and I are going to be equal to every opportunity, every demand, every responsibility—and still have leisure to love each other, and to be to each other everything that either could desire."
"After all," he said, serious and unconvinced, "there are only twenty-four hours in a day for us to be together."
"Yes, darling, but there will be no wasted time in those twenty-four hours. That is where we save a sufficient number of minutes to attend to the business of life."
"Do you mean that you intend to come into this office every day?"
"For a while, yes. Less frequently when I have trained my people a little longer. What do you suppose my father was doing all his life? What do you suppose I have been doing these last three years? Why, Jim, except that hitherto I have loved to fuss over details, this office and this business could almost run itself for six months at a time. Some day, except for special clients here and there, Lionel Sissly will do what expert work I now am doing; and this desk will be his; and his present position will be filled by Mr. Mirk. That is how it is planned. And if you had given me two or three months, I might have been able to go on a bridal trip with you!"
"We are going, aren't we?" he asked, appalled.
"If I've got to marry you offhand," she said seriously, "our wedding trip will have to wait. Don't you know, dear, that it always costs heavily to do anything in a hurry? At this time of year, and under the present conditions of business, and considering my contracts and obligations, it would be utterly impossible for me to go away again until summer."
He sprang up irritated, yet feeling utterly helpless under her friendly but level gaze. Already he began to realise the true significance of her position and his own in the world; how utterly at a moral disadvantage he stood before this young girl—moral, intellectual, spiritual—he was beginning to comprehend it all now.
A dull flush of anger made his face hot and altered his expression to sullenness. Where was all this leading them, anyway—this reversal of rôles, this self-dependent attitude of hers—this calm self-reliance—this freedom of decision?
Once he had supposed there was something in her to protect, to guide, advise, make allowance for—perhaps to persuade, possibly, even, to instruct. Such has been the immemorial attitude of man; it had been instinctively, and more or less unconsciously, his.