I seem to feel, myself, that you are.' Was she?
How she wished she were.

Yet the wish was mixed with fear.

She said, faltering, 'Don't ask me now.

I'm so glad to see you--so glad; but that's not the same thing, is it ?' 'It may be on the way to it.' 'May it ?' she sighed tremblingly.
There was a silence; and then, taking her hand again, he again kissed it, and holding it for an insistent moment said, 'Althea, won't you try being engaged to me ?' She said nothing, turning away her face.
'You might make a habit of loving me, you know,' he went on half whimsically.

'No one would know anything about it.