"No, no, Harry—please! I can't explain it, but I really am quite, quite sure! No one could be gladder than I if it were otherwise!"
"One person could, I fancy. Well, the thing to do now is to decide what's to be done to make you love me.... For that is the next thing, you know," he went on, in reply to an inarticulate expression of dissent from Madge. "You don't suppose I'm going to leave this house to-night and never think of you again, do you? You don't suppose I'm ever going to give up loving you and trying to make you love me, as long as we two shall live and after?"
"I thought," murmured Madge, apparently to her handkerchief. The rest was almost inaudible, but Harry succeeded in catching the phrase "some nice girl."
"Oh, rot!!" he exclaimed vociferously. Then he sank down on the piano bench, rested his elbows on the keyboard cover and burst into paroxysms of laughter. The idea of his leaving Madge and going out in search of "some nice girl"! Madge, still leaning on the edge of the piano, watched him with some apprehension, occasionally smothering a reluctant smile in her handkerchief.
"Excuse me, Madge," he said at last, wiping his eyes, "but that's probably the funniest remark ever made!... A large, shapeless person, with yellow hair and a knitted shawl ... a sort of German type, who'd take the most wonderful care of my socks ... with a large, soft kiss, like ... like a hot cross bun!..." He was off again.
"Hush, Harry, don't be absurd! Hush, you'll wake Mama! Harry, you're impossible!" Madge herself was laughing at the portrait, for all that. It was some minutes before either of them could return to the subject in hand.
"Oh, you'll love me all right, in time!" That laugh had cleared the atmosphere tremendously; it seemed much easier to talk freely and sensibly now. "Of course you don't think so now, and that's quite as it should be; but time makes one look at things differently."
"No, no, you mustn't count on that. If I don't now, I can't ever possibly! Really—"
"What, not love me? Impossible! Look at me!" He became serious and went on: "Madge, granting that you don't care a hang for me now, can you look into your inmost heart and say you're perfectly sure you never, never could get to care for me, some time in the dim future of years?"
"I—don't know," replied Madge inconclusively.