She nodded. "I suppose I do--from your point of view."

"No--from _our_ point of view."

"Well, yes.... It is just a little bit hard, though, that the first offer of marriage I ever made should be turned down."

Harry laughed, loudly and suddenly. "That's right!" he said; "that's _you_! Not that self-denunciatory thing of a minute ago. Don't ever be self-denunciatory again, please. Just remember there's nothing in the world that can possibly be your fault, and _then_ you'll be all right!... Now then, we can talk. I suppose," he went on, with a change of tone, "you like me quite well, just as much as ever, and all that; only when it comes to the question of whether you could ever be happy for one instant without me you are forced to admit that you could. Is that it?"

Madge nodded her head. "That's just about it. For a long time--oh, but what's the use in _that_...?"

"No, go ahead."

"Well, one or two people have been in love with me before--or thought they were, and though that disturbed me at times, it never amounted to much. In fact I thought the whole thing rather fun, as I remember it--Heaven forgive me for it! But then you came along and after a while--several months ago--it became borne in on me that you were going to--to act the same way, and I immediately realized that it was going to be much, _much_ more serious than the others. And I--well, I had a cobblestone for a heart, and knew it. So I tried my best to keep you off the scent, in every way I could, knowing what a crash there would be if it came to _that_.... But I never knew what I missed till to-night, when you showed me what a magnificent creature a person really in love is, and what a loathsome, detestable, contemptible creature--"

"Come, come, remember my instructions," interpolated Harry.

"--a person incapable of love is. And it just knocked me flat for the moment."

"I see," said Harry thoughtfully; "I see."

"I suppose," continued Madge, "it would have been easier all around if I didn't like you so much. I could conceive of marriage without love, if the person was thoroughly nice and I was quite sure there was no chance of my loving any one else, just because it's nicer to be rich than poor, but with you--no!... And on the other hand, I daresay I _might_ have come nearer falling in love with you if you hadn't been--such a notoriously good match ... you never realized that, perhaps?... I just couldn't bear the thought of giving _you_ anything but the real thing, if I gave you anything--that's what it comes to!"

"Madge, what I don't see is how you can go on talking that way and feeling that way and not be in love with me! Not much, of course, but just a teeny bit!... Don't you really think your conscience is making--well, making a fool of you?"

"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.

"There you are--you know perfectly well you can't! However, I don't intend to bother you about that now. What I want to suggest now is that we had better be apart for a while, now that we know how things stand between us--not see anything of each other for a long time. That's the best way. That's how I fell in love with you--how I became sure about it, at any rate. That was why I went to North Carolina, of course."

Madge thought seriously for a moment or two. What he said seemed reasonable. If he did go entirely out of her head after a few months'

absence, he would be out of it for good and all, and there was the end of it. Whereas, in the unlikely event of his _not_ going out of her head, but going into her heart, she would be much surer of herself than if under the continual stimulus and charm of his presence.

"Well," she said at length. "But how will you arrange it?"

"I shall simply go away--to-morrow. Abroad. You'll be here?"

"Yes."

"What do you do this summer?"

"I'm not sure--that is, I had thought of going to Bar Harbor, with the Gilsons--as governess. They have a dear little girl."

Harry made a gesture of impatience. "I suppose that's as good as anything. If you'll be happy?"

"Oh, perfectly. I should enjoy that, actually, more than anything else.

Mama'll be with Aunt Tizzy. I think I'll do it, now. I'd rather be doing something."

"Well, we'll meet here, then, at the end of the summer, in September. I suppose we'd better not write. Unless, that is, you see light before the time is up. Then you're to let me know--that's part of the bargain. Just wire to my bankers the single word, 'Elliston.' I'll know."

"On one condition--that you do the same if you change your mind the other way!"

"Madge, what idiocy!"

"No, no; you must agree. Why shouldn't you be given a chance of changing your mind, as well as I?"

"Very well; it's probably the easiest bargain any one ever made....

Well, that's all, I think." They both paused, wondering what was to come next. The matter did seem to be fairly well covered. He made as if to go.

"Oh, one thing--your work!" Madge apparently was suffering a slight relapse of self-denunciation. "How absolutely like me, I never thought of that!"

"I can work abroad as well as here. I can work anywhere better than here--you must see that."

"I suppose so." She fixed her eyes on the carpet. A hundred thousand things were teeming in her brain, clamoring to be said, but she turned them all down as "absurd" and contented herself at last with: "You sail immediately, then?"

"Sat.u.r.day, I expect. To the Mediterranean. I shall leave town to-morrow, though; you won't be bothered by me again!"

"You must give yourself plenty of time to pack. Be sure--" she checked herself, apparently embarra.s.sed.

"Be sure what?"

"Nothing--none of my business."

"Yes, please! My dying request!"

"Well, I was going to tell you to be sure to take plenty of warm things for the voyage. Men are so silly about such things!"

As with Madge a minute ago, all sorts of things shouted to be done and said in his brain, but he shut the door firmly on all of them and replied quietly, "All right, I will," and started toward the door.

She could not let it go at that, after all. Before the door had swung to behind him she had rushed up and caught it.

"Oh, Harry!" she exclaimed; "if it does--if it should come off, wouldn't it be simply--Nirvana, and that sort of thing?"