"Don't you trust me?"
"Not to shear sheep."
Martin laughed ruefully.
"You're very sensible, Joanna—unshakably so. But I'm not asking you to trust me with the sheep, but to trust me with yourself. Don't misunderstand me, dear. I'm not asking you to marry me at the beginning of the month just because I haven't the patience to wait till the end. It isn't that, I swear it. But don't you see that if you fix our marriage to fit in with the farm-work, it'll simply be beginning things in the wrong way? As we begin we shall have to go on, and we can't go on settling and ordering our life according to Ansdore's requirements—it's a wrong principle. Think, darling," and he drew her close against his heart, "we shall want to see our children—and will you refuse, just because that would mean that you would have to lie up and keep quiet and not go about doing all your own business?"
Joanna shivered.
"Oh, Martin, don't talk of such things."
"Why not?"
She had given him some frank and graphic details about the accouchement of her favourite cow, and he did not understand that the subject became different when it was human and personal.
"Because I—because we ain't married yet."
"Joanna, you little prude!"