n? Believe
me, those little adolescent Citizenesses-to-be, the seminary girls, do
not primp and pile their curls bewitchingly over their ears because they
want the ballot. It's the daily petition they make of themselves for
lovers!"

"That is your egregious masculine conceit, Bob, imagining every woman is
thinking of winning lovers and husbands. We love ourselves. We do our
best to look well because we have a satisfaction in our own appearance!"
Selah exclaimed with indignant heat.

"Of course, and I must say you bear charming witness to your own sweet
perfection, dear," he laughed, "but you don't see my point."

"I will not! It is not a point anyway, it's--it's--a joke you make at
our expense!" she accused.

"No, beloved, it really is well taken, my position. But your mind is so
obsessed, all of your thoughts are so focussed upon one of the mere
incidents of life, that you are missing the real issue of happiness. Let
me explain."

"You can't do it, but you may try," she conceded.

"Love, Selah, is the one thing that must always come to pass in the
hearts of men and women. It doesn't matter under what conditions they
live, they must love or die unfulfilled in the very purpose for which
they were created. It is a season in the life of us, dear, a _season_,
you understand--the time when nature blooms in us, when the fragrance of
our very spirits ascends in tender emotions, in the perfume of language,
in looks such as the gaze with which I now behold you, and which makes
your cheek one anthology of roses!" he concluded, as the warm colour
rose like a red wreath beneath her ivory skin. "But listen, dear, the
season passes. The rose fades. The strength of man changes, passes into
the strength of achievement or into the dead leaves of failure. Then
where will we be, Selah, you and I?"

"Well be doing our share of the world's work, sanely and well, I hope,"
she answered quickly.

"Granted, though it's an awful gamble. But suppose you succeed. Suppose
you win everything and more than you are now contending for. Suppose at
forty you are nominated for Congress from this district, do you think
I'd ask you then to be my wife? Not if I had failed as much as you had
succeeded! I would not, because I could not love you as I love you now.
Don't cry! But I swear I will not marry you then!" he ended, laughing.

"And do you think I'd want to marry you then?" she asked, amazed.

"Yes, I know you will; if not me, some other man.