culine joy of possession.

At last they sat down on either side of the white cloth the waiter had
laid, for even the gods must eat. Not that our deified mortals ate much
on this occasion. Vesta presided once more, and after the feast was over
gently led them down the slopes until certain practical affairs began to
take shape in the mind of the man. Presently he looked at his watch, and
then at the woman, and made a suggestion.

"Marry you now--this of afternoon!" she cried, aghast. "Hugh, are you in
your right senses?"

"Yes," he said, "I'm reasonable for the first time in my life."

She laughed, and immediately became serious. But when she sought to
marshal her arguments, she found that they had fled.

"Oh, but I couldn't," she answered. "And besides, there are so many
things I ought to do. I--I haven't any clothes."

But this was a plea he could not be expected to recognize. He saw no
reason why she could not buy as many as she wanted after the ceremony.

"Is that all?" he demanded.

"No--that isn't all. Can't you see that--that we ought to wait, Hugh?"

"No," he exclaimed, "No I can't see it. I can only see that every
moment of waiting would be a misery for us both. I can only see that the
situation, as it is to-day, is an intolerable one for you."

She had not expected him to see this.

"There are others to be thought of," she said, after a moment's
hesitation.

"What others?"

The answer she should have made died on her lips.

"It seems so-indecorous, Hugh."

"Indecorous!" he cried, and pushed back his chair and rose. "What's
indecorous about it? To leave you here alone in a hotel in New York
would not only be indecorous, but senseless. How long would you put it
off? a week--a month--a year? Where would you go in the meantime, and
what would you do?"

"But your friends, Hugh--and mine?"

"Friends! What have they got to do with it?"

It was the woman, now, who for a moment turned practical--and for the
man's sake. She loved, and the fair fabric of the future which they were
to weave together, and the plans with which his letters had been filled
and of which she had dreamed in exile, had become to-day as the stuff of
which moonbeams are made. As she looked up at him, eternity itself did
not seem long enough for the fulfilment of that love. But he? Would
the time not come when he would demand something more? and suppose that
something were denied? She tried to rouse herself, to think, to consider