"But you would be sure to know. Even if I had not telegraphed I never
could have kept it a secret from you."

"Not easily. I should have been, as you observe, sure to know. Do you
remember how I always refused to believe you? It was not until you were
in that horrid Japan, where all the women are supposed to be
beautiful--"

"Yes," Jimmie acquiesced. "It was when I was in Japan."

"It was then that it began to seem possible that you would be married
when you came home. It was then that I began to realize that I didn't
deserve to be told of your plans. For I had been a fool, Jimmie. You had
been a fool, too, but not in the way you think. And so, if you will sit
where I sat that horrid day, we will begin that conversation all over
again and end it differently. The first speech was yours. Do you
remember it?"

"But I'm going to be married," said Jimmie.

"Good boy. He knows his lesson. And now I say, 'To the most beautiful
woman in the world?'"

"To the most beautiful woman God ever made. The dearest, the most
clever, the most simple."

"Simple," repeated Miss Knowles with some natural surprise. "Did you say
simple?"

"Simple and jolly and unaffected. As true and as bright as the stars.
And I'm going to marry her--"

"Now this," Miss Knowles interjected, "is where the difference comes.
You are to sit quite still and listen to me because a thing like
this--however long and carefully one had thought it out--is difficult in
the saying. So, I stand here before you where I can look at you; for
four months are long; and where you may, when I have quite finished,
kiss my hand again; for again four months are long. And I begin thus:
Jimmie, you are going to be married--"

"I told you first," cried Jimmie.

"But I knew it first," she countered, "to a woman who has learned to
love you during the past three months, but who could not do it more
utterly, more perfectly, if she had practiced through all the years that
you and I have been friends."

"So she says," Jimmie interrupted with sudden heat. "So she says. God
bless her!"

"And, ah, _how_ she is fond of you. 'Fond' is a darling of a word. It
keeps just enough of its old 'foolish' meaning to be human. Proud of
you, glad of you, fond of you--I think that this is, perhaps, the time
for you to kiss my hand."

"You're a darling," he said as he obeyed. "But what I can't
understand--"

"It's not your turn. You may talk after I finish if I leave anything for
you