"I don't know. It's not easy to tell beforehand how people are going to feel; but I can't imagine the High Valley ever seeming like a prison," replied Clover, vexed to find herself blushing, and yet unable to help it, Geoff's manner had such an odd intensity in it.
"If I were sure that you could realize what it would be—" he began impetuously; then quieting himself, "but you don't. How could you? Ranch life is well enough in summer for a short time by way of a frolic; but in winter and spring with the Upper Canyon full of snow, and the road down muddy and slippery, and the storms and short days, and the sense of being shut in and lonely, it would be a dismal place for a lady. Nobody has a right to expect a woman to undergo such a life."
Clover absorbed herself in her sewing, she did not speak; but still that deep uncomfortable blush burned on her cheeks.
"What do you think?" persisted Geoff. "Wouldn't it be inexcusable selfishness in a man to ask such a thing?"
"I think;" said Clover, shyly and softly, "that a man has a right to ask for whatever he wants, and—" she paused.
"And—what?" urged Geoff, bending forward.
"Well, a woman has always the right to say no, if she doesn't want to say yes."
"You tempt me awfully," cried Geoff, starting up. "When I think what this place is going to seem like after you've gone, and what the ranch will be with all the heart taken from it, and the loneliness made twice as lonely by comparison, I grow desperate, and feel as if I could not let you go without at least risking the question. But Clover,—let me call you so this once,—no woman could consent to such a life unless she cared very much for a man. Could you ever love me well enough for that, do you think?"
"It seems to me a very unfair sort of question to put," said Clover, with a mischievous glint in her usually soft eyes. "Suppose I said I could, and then you turned round and remarked that you were ever so sorry that you couldn't reciprocate my feelings—"
"Clover," catching her hand, "how can you torment me so? Is it necessary that I should tell you that I love you with every bit of heart that is in me, and need you and want you and long for you, but have never dared to hope that you could want me? Loveliest, sweetest, I do, and I always shall, whether it is yes or no."