"As I didn't," he groaned. "You wouldn't let me."
"No, I don't want you ever to risk anything for me, Harvey. But I'm just as grateful—and more than that. If there weren't so many people looking on do you know what I'd say?"
"What?"
"Kiss me." The words came so unexpectedly that he forgot their subjunctive mode. He took them to be in the imperative, and came near obeying. He checked himself in time, and said:
"How soon shall I be able to call you mine before all the world?"
"Do you wish that?"
"Madly! It is my one great wish."
She breathed deeply and caressed him with a delicious smile, and murmured:
"It is mine, too."
And then Ten Eyck and Winifred and Mrs. Neff and Alice, and others of her acquaintance, crowded round, summoned by the flying rumor of the incident. At length some one exclaimed: