“Haven’t you a good deal more to say?” he asked presently, with a teasing smile.
“Look here, you’re not going to laugh me into marrying you, you know,” she said fiercely.
“I know no better way.”
She caught his nearest hand and kissed it, and continued to hold it between her own.
“I suppose I am being too serious,” she said thoughtfully. “But that other affair taught me a lot. It all went wrong, you see. I don’t know now how I ever came to begin. It only lasted three months, and it is all over and done with.”
“Is it really? I didn’t know that anything was ever over and done with.”
“Oh, now, you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I won’t interrupt. Go on.”
“Well, then, because we hadn’t married, we got out of it without any trouble.”
Dane took his pipe out of his mouth and waited a moment before he spoke.
“Really? You got out of it without any trouble? Then it must have been a highly immoral relation, without a scrap of feeling on either side.”
“I see. Of course I don’t mean it that way.”
“No, you meant that you didn’t have to go through the business of getting a divorce.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t want to marry me because you’re sure it won’t last long and that you will wish to leave me or I you.”
“Oh, I’m not sure of anything. Oh dear, why do we have to talk about it?” She dropped her head in her hands again.
“Yes, I think it’s a beastly bore myself. It would be
