st. But I
don't believe they were made--any more than Christ was--to
cultivate--beyond a certain point--their own souls, and refine their
own minds, and live in a sort of warmed-over, dilettante, stained-glass
world of seclusion and exclusion. No, sir, that won't do for the United
States and the men who are making them the greatest nation of the
world. The men have got all the get-up-and-get they want, but they need
the women to point them straight, and to show them how to lead that
other kind of life that isn't all grind. Since I've known you, Miss
Dearborn, I've just begun to wake up to the fact that there is that
other kind, but I can't lead that life without you. There's no kind of
life that's worth anything to me now that don't include you. I don't
need to tell you that I want you to marry me. You know that by now, I
guess, without any words from me. I love you, and I love you as a man,
not as a boy, seriously and earnestly. I can give you no idea how
seriously, how earnestly. I want you to be my wife. Laura, my dear
girl, I know I could make you happy."

"It isn't," answered Laura slowly, perceiving as he paused that he
expected her to say something, "much a question of that."

"What is it, then? I won't make a scene. Don't you love me? Don't you
think, my girl, you could ever love me?"

Laura hesitated a long moment. She had taken the rose from her
shoulder, and plucking the petals one by one, put them delicately
between her teeth. From the other end of the room came the clamorous
exhortations of Monsieur Gerardy. Mrs. Cressler and the Gretry girl
watched the progress of the rehearsal attentively from the doorway of
the dining-room. Aunt Wess' and Mr. Cressler were discussing psychic
research and seances, on the sofa on the other side of the room. After
a while Laura spoke.

"It isn't that either," she said, choosing her words carefully.

"What is it, then?"

"I don't know--exactly. For one thing, I don't think I _want_ to be
married, Mr. Jadwin--to anybody."

"I would wait for you."

"Or to be engaged."

"But the day must come, sooner or later, when you must be both engaged
and married. You must ask yourself _some time_ if you love the man who
wishes to be your husband. Why not ask yourself now?"

"I do," she answered. "I do ask myself. I have asked myself."

"Well, what do you decide?"

"That I don't know."

"Don't you think you would love me in time? Laura, I am sure you would.
I would make y