!" as crowds say it when
a rocket goes off.

"I suppose you think it ridiculous in a man of my age to speak of love,
but it's not ridiculous, by Heaven! It's tragic. I shouldn't have
presumed, though, to mention the subject to you, only it is intolerable
to me to think of your lacking anything when I have so much. I can't
explain why this knowledge gave me courage. I know that you care nothing
for luxuries and money, less than any one I know; but the fact that you
haven't everything that you ought to have makes me suffer so much that I
hope you will at least listen to me."

"But you know it doesn't make me suffer a bit," said Mrs. Wayne.

"To know you at all has been such a happiness that I am shocked at my own
presumption in asking for your companionship for the rest of my life, and
if in addition to that I could take care of you, share with you--"

No one ever presented a proposition to Mrs. Wayne without finding her
willing to consider it, an open-mindedness that often led her into the
consideration of absurdities. And now the sacred cupidity of the
reformer did for an instant leap up within her. All the distressed
persons, all the tottering causes in which she was interested, seemed to
parade before her eyes. Then, too, the childish streak in her character
made her remember how amusing it would be to be Adelaide Farron's
mother-in-law, and Peter's grandmother by marriage. Nor was she at all
indifferent to the flattery of the offer or the touching reserves of her
suitor's nature.

"I should think you would be so lonely!" he said gently.

She nodded.

"I am often. I miss not having any one to talk to over the little things
that"--she laughed--"I probably wouldn't talk over if I had some one.
But even with Pete I am lonely. I want to be first with some one again."

"You will always be first with me."

"Even if I don't marry you?"

"Whatever you do."

Like the veriest coquette, she instantly decided to take all and give
nothing--to take his interest, his devotion, his loyalty, all of the
first degree, and give him in return a divided interest, a loyalty too
much infected by humor to be complete, and a devotion in which several
causes and Pete took precedence. She did not do this in ignorance. On the
contrary, she knew just how it would be; that he would wait and she be
late, that he would adjust himself and she remain unchanged, that he
would give and give and she would never remember that it would be kind