“No, Dick, certainly not; ’tisn’t time to do that yet.”
“Why, Fancy?”
“‘Miss Day’ is better at present—don’t mind my saying so; and I ought not to have called you Dick.”
“Nonsense! when you know that I would do anything on earth for your love. Why, you make any one think that loving is a thing that can be done and undone, and put on and put off at a mere whim.”
“No, no, I don’t,” she said gently; “but there are things which tell me I ought not to give way to much thinking about you, even if—”
“But you want to, don’t you? Yes, say you do; it is best to be truthful. Whatever they may say about a woman’s right to conceal where her love lies, and pretend it doesn’t exist, and things like that, it is not best; I do know it, Fancy. And an honest woman in that, as well as in all her daily concerns, shines most brightly, and is thought most of in the long-run.”
“Well then, perhaps, Dick, I do love you a little,” she whispered tenderly; “but I wish you wouldn’t say any more now.”
“I won’t say any more now, then, if you don’t like it, dear. But you do love me a little, don’t you?”
“Now you ought not to want me to keep saying things twice; I can’t say any more now, and you must be content with what you have.”
“I may at any rate call you Fancy? There’s no harm in that.”