"Yes," I says, "I s'pose I have."
He laughed. "You're a funny girl," he says.
"It's silly to pretend," I says.
"You bet," he says, "it's silly to pretend. Give me a kiss, then. Kiss me yourself."
I did. I had to see whether I was pretending not to want to, or whether I really didn't want to. I see right away that I didn't want to.
"Marry me, Cossy," he says. "Will you?"
I was twenty years old. For a long time Ma had been asking me why I didn't marry some nice young man. "Marry some nice young man," she says. "You'll be happier, Cossy." Why would I be happier, I wondered. What would make me happy? There would be, I supposed, a great deal of this kind of thing. I thought it was honest to talk it over with Luke.
"What for?" I says.
"Because I love you," says Luke serious; "and I want you."