She stared into the fire saying nothing.
“Valerie, I have to know what is in your mind about this. What are you afraid of?”
“Dane, I lived with somebody else once.”
“I have wondered if you had.”
“You have!”
“Yes. Why, you haven’t been afraid to tell me that, have you?”
“No, not exactly afraid. But—will that—do you still wish to marry me?”
“Are you trying to be funny, or what?”
She turned from the fire to look steadily into his face.
“It would be all right to put that question to a boy of twenty-one, if you had been rotten enough to let a boy of twenty-one fall in love with you without being told it, but to put it to me is ridiculous. You know, I’m beginning to see that you are not as unconventional as you think you are; that was an absurdly conventional question, and it had behind it assumptions that I am an intolerant and hypocritical blockhead.”
Her face broke into a smile.
“Yes, for God’s sake let’s laugh at ourselves. This seriousness is awful.”
“How old are you?” she asked abruptly.
“Thirty-seven, and old and full of days at that.”
“I’m twenty-six.”
“And absurdly young for that.”
“I am not.”
“Well, you seem so to me, but I like you that way.”
He lit a cigarette for her and drew the rug about her. The wind had gone down, and the night was fresh but not cold. The growing crescent moon peered down at them through a space between two trees.
