"To hesitate over a proposal is to refuse," said he with gentle
raillery. "A man is a fool who does not understand and sheer off when
a woman asks for time."

"You know that I love you," she cried.

"I also know that you love something else more. But it's finished.
Let's talk about something else."

"Won't you let me tell you why I hesitate?" begged she.

"It doesn't matter."

"But it does. Yes, I do refuse, Donald. I'll never marry you until I
am independent. You said a while ago that what I've been through had
made a woman of me. Not yet. I'm only beginning. I'm still
weak--still a coward. Donald, I must and will be free."

He looked full at her, with a strange smile in his brilliant eyes. Said
he, with obvious intent to change the subject: "Mrs. Brindley's very
unhappy that you haven't been to see her."

"When you asked me to marry you, the only reason I almost accepted was
because I want someone to support me. I love you--yes. But it is as
one loves before one has given oneself and has lived the same life with
another. In the ordinary sense, it's love that I feel. But--do you
understand me, dearest?--in another sense, it's only the hope of love,
the belief that love will come."

He stopped short and looked at her, his eyes alive with the stimulus of
a new and startling idea.

"If you and I had been everything to each other, and you were saying
'Let us go on living the one life' and I were hesitating, then you'd be
right. And I couldn't hesitate, Donald. If you were mine, nothing
could make me give you up, but when it's only the hope of having you,
then pride and self-respect have a chance to be heard."

He was ready to move on. "There's something in that," said he, lapsed
into his usual seeming of impassiveness. "But not much."

"I never before knew you to fail to understand."

"I understand perfectly. You care, but you don't care enough to suit
me. I haven't waited all these years before giving a woman my love, to
be content with a love seated quietly and demurely between pride and
self-respect."

"You wouldn't marry me until I had failed," said she shrewdly. "Now
you attack me for refusing to marry you until I've succeeded."

A slight shrug. "Proposal withdrawn," said he. "Now let's talk about
your career, your plans."

"I'm beginning to understand myself a little," said she. "I suppose
you think that sort of personal talk is very silly and vain--and
trivial."

"On th