"I don't think Insley meant for a minute to show any lack of formal respect for Christopher's sleep. But what Insley did was simply to turn and sit him down, bolt upright, on my lap. Then he wheeled round, trying to read her face.
"'Do you mean you aren't going to marry him?' he demanded, rough—it's like watching another sign of folks to watch for the one thing that will make one or another rough.
"'We are not going to be married,' she said. 'I mean that.'
"I suppose likely the room went away altogether then, Christopher and me included, and left Insley there in some place a long ways from everywhere, with Robin's face looking at him. And he just naturally took that face between his hands.
"'Robin,' he said, 'don't make me wait to know.'
"Insley was the suddenest thing. And land, what it done to her name to have him say it. Just for a minute it sounded as if her name was the population of the world,—but with room for everybody else, too.
"I think she put up her hands to take down his hands, but when she touched them, I think hers must have closed over his, next door to on purpose.
"'Dear,' she says, 'tell me afterward.'
"In that minute of stillness in which any new heaven is let down on a suitable new earth, a little voice piped up:—
"'Tell it now,' says the voice. 'Is it a story? Tell it now.'