he's going to be
the great English composer, and I only know that even a barrel-organ in
the street has always made me feel what I used to call when I was small
all 'live-y and love-y.'"

"There is nothing one can get drunk on like music and poetry," said
Ishmael slowly. "Pictures one needs to understand before they can
intoxicate, and prose can fill and satisfy you, but it's only the other
two one can go mad on, and this--"

He pulled her to him, a hand beneath her chin, his other arm round her
sturdy, soft little body, and she met his eyes bravely for a moment.
Then hers closed, but he still paused before he kissed her.

"Georgie, are you sure?" he asked. "Have you thought over all the
drawbacks?"

"Such as--?"

"My brothers ... even my son, who will have to come before any we may
have.... I don't want any more bad blood over this heritage, Georgie!
And I--I'm a good many years older than you--"

"And terribly sot in your ways, as Mrs. Penticost says ..." murmured
Georgie. "Ishmael, aren't you going to ...?"

Then he did, and Georgie nestled close to him with a sigh of
satisfaction. After a little while her indefatigable tongue began again.

"Ishmael, isn't it funny to think it might never have happened? Just
suppose I had been actually married to Val instead of only sort of
engaged.... I might have been, you know."

"If you didn't care about him," began Ishmael, then stopped, feeling he
was a poor advocate of a simple and unmistakable method of loving.

"Well, it's very difficult for a girl," explained Georgie. "Even when I
was getting fond of him I knew it wasn't what I'd imagined falling in
love to be like, but I thought it might be all I could manage. You see,
in real life, the second-best has such a disconcerting habit of coming
along first. You know all the time that it is only the second-best, but
you think to yourself, 'Suppose the first-best never comes along for me,
and I have said No to this, then there'll be nothing but a third-best
to fall back on.' That's why so many women marry just not the right
man."

"And I--am I the first-best ...?" asked Ishmael in a low voice.

Georgie nodded.

"Ah!" she said; "you need never be jealous of poor Val. If anyone has
anything to be jealous over, it's me--not that I'm going to be. After
all, one can't be a man's first love and his last, and it's more
important to be his last! What's the matter ...? You look funny,
somehow...."

"Nothing," said Ishmae