"You were sure of me all the time, Graydon," she remonstrated. "I tried to hide it, but I couldn't. You must have thought me a perfect fool all these months."
"You are very much mistaken, if you please. You did hide it so successfully at times, that I was sick with uncertainty."
"Well, it's all over now," she smiled, and he sighed with a great relief.
"All over but the--the wedding," he said.
"Oh, that's a long way off. Let's not worry over that, Graydon."
"A long way off? Nonsense! I won't wait."
"Won't?"
"I should have said can't. Let's see; this is February. March, dearest?"
"Graydon, you are so much younger than I thought. A girl simply cannot be hurried through a--an engagement. Next winter."
"Next what? That's nearly a year, Jane. It's absurd! I'm ready."
"I know. It's mighty noble of you, too. But I just can't, dearest. No one ever docs."
"Don't--don't you think I'm prepared to take care of you?" he said, straightening up a bit.
She looked at his strong figure and into his earnest eyes and laughed, so adorably, that his resentment was only passing.
"I can't give you a home like this," he explained; "but you know I'll give you the best I have all my life."
"You can't help succeeding, Graydon," she said earnestly. "Everyone says that of you. I'm not afraid. I'm not thinking of that. It isn't the house I care for. It's the home. You must let me choose the day."
"I suppose it's customary," he said at last. "June is the month for brides, let me remind you."
"Before you came this evening I had decided on January next, but now I am willing to---"
"Oh, you decided before I came, eh?" laughingly.
"Certainly," she said unblushingly. "Just as you had decided on the early spring. But, listen, dear, I am willing to say September of this year."
"One, two, three--seven months. They seem like years, Jane. You won't say June?"
"Please, please let me have some of the perquisites," she pleaded. "It hasn't seemed at all like a proposal. I've really been cheated of that, you must remember, dear. Let me say, at least, as they all do, that I'll give you an answer in three days."
"Granted. I'll admit it wasn't the sort of proposal one reads about in novels---"
"But it was precisely as they are in real life, I'm sure. No one has a stereotyped proposal any more. The men always take it for granted and begin planning things before a girl can say no."
"Ah, I see it has happened to you," he said, jealous at once.