ened, all at once, "lot yer know
about it! I'm crazy about you, little kid--just crazy! Yer th' only girl
as I've ever wanted t' tie up to, get that? How'd yer like t' marry me?"

For one sickening moment Rose-Marie thought that she had
misunderstood. And then she saw his face and knew that he had been
deadly serious. Her hands fluttered up until they rested, like
frightened birds, above her heart.

XVII

AN ANSWER

There was eagerness--and a hint of something else--in Jim's voice as he
repeated his question.

"Well," he asked for the second time, "what d' yer say about it--huh?
How'd yer like ter marry me?"

Rose-Marie's fascinated eyes were on his face. At the first she had
hardly believed her ears--but her ears had evidently been functioning
properly. Jim wanted to marry her--to marry _her_! It was a possibility
that she had never dreamed of--a thought that she had never, for one
moment, entertained. Jim had always seemed so utterly of another
world--of another epoch, almost. He spoke a language that was far removed
from her language, his mind worked differently--even his emotions were
different from her emotions. He might have been living upon another
planet--so distant he had always seemed from her. _And yet he had asked
her to marry him_!

Like every other normal girl, Rose-Marie had thought ahead to the time
when she would have a home and a husband. She had dreamed of the day when
her knight would come riding--a visionary, idealized figure, always, but
a noble one! She had pictured a hearth-fire, and a blue and white kitchen
with aluminum pans and glass baking dishes. She had even wondered how
tiny fingers would feel as they curled about her hand--if a wee head
would be heavy upon her breast.

Of late her dreams, for some reason, had become a little less misty--a
little more definite. The figure of her knight had been a trifle more
clear cut--the armour of her imagination had given place to rough tweed
suits and soft felt hats. And the children had looked at her, from out of
the shadows, with wide, dark eyes--almost like real children. Her
thoughts had shaped themselves about a figure that was not the romantic
creation of girlhood--that was strong and willing and very tender. Dr.
Blanchard--had he not been mistaken upon so many subjects--would have
fitted nicely into the picture!

But Jim--of all people, _Jim!_ He was as far removed from the boundaries
of her dream as the North Pole is removed