all he said.

Then Damaris pulled her hands away and, removing the yashmak, looked up
into his face, whilst he drew a breath sharply at the beauty of her.

"I love you so, dear! I'm a clumsy fool at speaking, but I could show
you how I love you. I want to marry you and take you right away home.
Do you know, I--I don't know how to explain it, but I--somehow feel you
are in danger out here. I--will you------?"

Damaris looked to the right and looked to the left, hesitated and chose
the middle path.

"I can't answer you now, Ben. I'm--I'm not sure about loving you, and,
of course, one can't marry without that on both sides, can one?"

Oh, the blessed little ignoramus!

"Besides," she added as an afterthought, "I'm so young, and so are you."

"Oh, Damaris! Surely you don't want to wait until you find someone
who's had lots of experience, which only means that he hasn't been
playing the game as far as his future wife is concerned and will come
to you like a ready-made suit returned from the cleaner's. The Kelhams
always marry young, and our brides are always very young. That's why,
I think, we're so strong and long-lived." He veered suddenly from the
mazy subject of eugenics and pleaded hard, persuasively, stubbornly.

But Damaris, just as stubbornly, shook her head.

"Besides, Ben, this is unexpected. I haven't seen anything of you
since I have been out; surely, if you love me so, you would have come
over more often to--to--prepare the way."

She unashamedly exposed her hurt, whilst the man inwardly called
himself every kind of a fool for having listened to another's voice
upon a subject as vital and tricky as love.

Still he urged and pleaded, being of those who, refusing to take No as
an answer, usually succeed in attaining their desire.

A wearisome process, but well worth while once in a lifetime, whatever
kind of a clutter those first cousins, obstinacy, stubbornness and
strong will cause you to accumulate about your feet at other times.

"I don't know enough to marry," persisted the girl. "I want to know
what love really is, first."

"Oh! but, dear, I can teach you all you want to know," replied the man,
in the customary all-sweeping manner of the male.

"But I want to know all about the different kinds."

"There are no different kinds, Damaris. There is only one sort."

"Then explain this to me."

It seemed that two months before the girl had left England, she had
found the tweeny, Li