n wondering," Dave ventured at length, "just where I
stand--with you. You remember our agreement?"

She averted her eyes, but her voice was steady. "You have observed the
terms?" she said.

"Yes--in all essential matters. I come to you now--in accordance with
those terms. You said that we would know. Now _I_ know; know as I
have always known since those wonderful days in the foothills; those
days from which I date my existence. Anything worth while that has
ripened in my life was sown by your smile and your confidence and your
strange pride in me, back in those sunny days. And I would repay it
all--and at the same time double my debt--by returning it to you, if I
may."

"I realize that I owe you an answer, now, Dave," she said, frankly.
"And I find it very hard to make that answer. Marriage means so much
more to a woman than it does to a man. I know you don't think so, but
it does. Man, after the honeymoon, returns to his first love--his
day's work. But woman cannot go back. . . . Don't misunderstand me,
Dave. I would be ashamed to say I doubt myself, or that I don't know
my mind, but you and I are no longer boy and girl. We are man and
woman now. And I just want time--just want time to be _sure_
that--that----"

"I suppose you are right," he answered. "I will not try to hurry your
decision. I will only try to give you an opportunity to know--to be
sure, as you said. Then, when you are sure, you will speak. I will
not re-open the subject."

His words had something of the ring of an ultimatum, but no endearments
that his lips might have uttered could have gripped her heart so
surely. She knew they were the words of a man in deadly earnest, a man
who had himself in hand, a man who made love with the same serious
purpose as he had employed in the other projects of his successful
life. She raised her eyes to his fine face. Decision was stamped all
over it; from the firm jaw to the steady eyes that met her own.
Suddenly she began to tremble. It was not fear. Afterwards she knew
it to have been pride--pride in his great masterly manfulness; in a
judgment so sure of itself that it dallied not a moment in stating the
terms upon which all future happiness might hang. For if Dave had
misread Irene's heart he had deliberately closed the only door through
which he might hope to approach it. But Irene instinctively knew that
he had not misread her heart; it seemed that this bold, daring
manoeuvre had