“What better thing could happen to you than to have someone take care of you?”
Jane sat up. “Oh, I want to live,” she said, almost with fierceness. “I’d hate to think my husband was just a sort of—feather cushion.”
“Is that the way you think of me?” His vanity was untouched. She didn’t, of course, mean it.
“No. But love is life. I don’t want to miss it.”
“You won’t miss it if you marry me. I swear it, Jane, I’ll make you love me.”
He was in dead earnest. And in spite of herself she was swayed by his attitude of conviction.
“Oh, we mustn’t talk of it,” she said, a bit breathlessly. “I’d rather not, please.”
They lunched at a charming French restaurant, where Frederick had dared Jane to eat snails. She acquiesced rather unexpectedly. “I have always wanted to do it,” she told him, “ever since I was a little girl and read Hans Andersen’s story of the white snails who lived in a forest of burdocks, and whose claim to aristocracy was that their ancestors had been baked and served in a silver dish.”
They had a table in a corner. He ordered the luncheon expertly.
“I can’t tell you how much I am enjoying it,” she said gratefully, as he once more gave her his attention.