that,
doesn't it?" He asked this anxiously.

"I don't expect my friends to agree with me in all points," said May,
smiling. "That would be very selfish!" She laughed. "I beg your pardon.
I mean that my taste in friends is pretty catholic," and here Boreham
detected a sudden coldness in her voice.

"Friendship--I will say more than that--love--has nothing to do with
'points of view,'" he began hastily. "A man may fall in love with a
woman as she passes his window, though he may never exchange a word with
her. Such things have happened."

"And it is just possible," suggested May, "that a protracted
conversation with the lady might have had the effect of destroying the
romance."

Here Boreham felt a wave of fear and hope and necessity surge through
his whole being. The moment had arrived!

"Not if you were the lady," he said in a convinced tone.

May still gazed down the street, etherealised beyond its usual beauty in
this thin pale light.

"I don't think any man, however magnanimous, could stand a woman long if
she made protracted lamentations after the manner of Jeremiah," she
said.

"You are purposely speaking ill of yourself," said Boreham. "Yet,
whatever you do or say makes a man fall in love with you." He was
finding words now without having to think.

"I was not aware of it," said May, rather coldly.

"It is true," he persisted. "You are different from other women; you are
the only woman I have ever met whom I wanted to marry."

It was out! Not as well put as he would have liked, but it was out. Here
was a proposal of marriage by word of mouth. Here was the orthodox
woman's definite opportunity. May would see the seriousness of it now.

"As a personal friend of yours," said May, and her tone was not as
serious as he had feverishly hoped, "I do not think you are consulting
your own interests at this moment, Mr. Boreham."

"No!" began Boreham. "Not mine exclusively----"

"Your remark was hasty--ill considered," she said, interrupting him.
"You don't really want to marry. You would find it an irksome bondage,
probably dull as well as irksome."

"Not with you!" exclaimed Boreham, and he touched her arm.

May's arm became miraculously hard and unsympathetic.

"Marriage is a great responsibility," she said.

"I have thought that all out," said Boreham. "There may be----"

"Then you know," she replied, "that it means----"

"I have calculated the cost," he said. "I am willing----"

"You have not