ry, and in the free-and-easy
give and take between young America of both sexes, he had learned with a
somewhat cynical shrewdness to discount it. He entered into the game,
but, in his own phrase, he always knew what he was about. Lydia, on the
contrary, often penetrated his armor by one of these shafts, barbed by
her complete unconsciousness of any intent. He felt now, with a
momentary anguish, that he could never be sure of her belonging quite to
him until they were married, and cried out upon her idea almost angrily,
"I don't know what you mean! We know each other now."

"Oh, no, we don't," she insisted. "There are lots of queer fancies in me
that you'll only find out by living with me--and, Oh, Paul! the fine,
noble things I _feel_ in you! But I can see the whole of them only by
seeing you day by day. And then there are lots of things that aren't in
us, really, yet, but only planted. They'll grow--we'll grow--Paul,
to-day is an epoch. We've passed a new milestone."

"How do you mean?" he asked.

"The way we've felt--the way we've talked--of real things--out there in
our own--" She laughed a little, a serene murmur of drollery which came
to her when she was at peace. "We've been engaged since November, but we
only got engaged to be married to-day--just as our wedding's to be in
June, but goodness knows when our marriage will be."

Paul smiled at her tenderly. "If I'd known the date was so uncertain as
that I shouldn't have dared to go so far in my house-building."

"Oh, it's all right so far," she reassured him, smiling; "but we must
pitch in and finish it. Why, that's just it, Paul--" she was struck with
the aptness of her illustration--"that's just it. We've got the rafters
and joists up now; maybe before we're married, if we're good, we can get
the roof on so it won't rain on us; but all the finishing, all that
makes it good to live in, has got to be done after the wedding."

He did not know exactly what she was talking about, but he made up for
vagueness by fervor. "After we are married," he cried, "I'll move
mountains and turn stones to gold."

"But the first thing to do is to lay floors for us to walk on," Lydia
told him.

For answer, he drew her into his arms and closed her mouth with a kiss.

CHAPTER XVII

CARD-DEALING AND PATENT CANDLES

Spring had come with its usual hotly advancing rush upon the low-lying,
sheltered southerly city. There had been a few days of magical warmth,
full of sp