"I say, Yes! If you're not afraid, why do you wish to keep our engagement from my mother's knowledge ?" His reasoning was unanswerable.

But where is the woman to be found who is not supple enough to slip through the stiff fingers of Reason?
She sheltered herself from his logic behind his language.
"Must I remind you again of the time when you were angry ?" she rejoined.
"You said your mother was bent on separating us.

If I don't want her to know of our engagement just yet--isn't that a good reason ?" She rested her head caressingly on his shoulder.

"Tell me," she went on, thinking of one of Miss Minerva's suggestions, "doesn't my aunt look to a higher marriage for you than a marriage with me ?" It was impossible to deny that Mrs.Gallilee's views might justify that inquiry.

Had she not more than once advised him to wait a few years--in other words, to wait until he had won the highest honours of his profession--before he thought of marrying at all?
But Carmina was too precious to him to be humiliated by comparisons with other women, no matter what their rank might be.