said nothing.

"To imagine that two independent human beings can be tied together like
a couple of Siamese twins, neither to move without the other, living
precisely the same life, year in, year out . . . why, it's silly,
positively silly."

In my ignorance I could find nothing to say, and after another moment my
intended husband swished the loosened gravel with his stick and said:

"I believe in married people leaving each other free--each going his and
her own way--what do you think?"

I must have stammered some kind of answer--I don't know what--for I
remember that he said next:

"Quite so, that's my view of matrimony, and I'm glad to see you appear
to share it. . . . Tell the truth, I was afraid you wouldn't," he added,
with something more about the nuns and the convent.

I wanted to say that I didn't, but my nervousness was increasing every
moment, and before I could find words in which to protest he was
speaking to me again.

"Our friends in the library seem to think that you and I could get along
together, and I'm disposed to think they're right--aren't you?"

In my ignorance and helplessness, and with the consciousness of what I
was expected to do, I merely looked at him without speaking.

Then he fixed his monocle afresh, and, looking back at me in a curious
way, he said:

"I don't think I should bore you, my dear. In fact, I should be rather
proud of having a good-looking woman for my wife, and I fancy I could
give you a good time. In any case"--this with a certain
condescension--"my _name_ might be of some use to you."

A sort of shame was creeping over me. The dog was yawning in my face. My
intended husband threw it off his knee.

"Shall we consider it a settled thing, then?" he asked, and when in my
confusion I still made no reply (having nothing which I felt myself
entitled to say), he said something about Aunt Bridget and what she had
told him at luncheon about my silence and shyness, and then rising to
his feet he put my arm through his own, and turned our faces towards
home.

That was all. As I am a truthful woman, that was everything. Not a word
from me, nay, not half a word, merely a passive act of silent
acquiescence, and in my youthful and almost criminal innocence I was
committed to the most momentous incident of my life.

But if there was no love-making, no fondling, no kissing, no courtship
of any kind, and none of the delirious rapture which used to be
described in Alma's novel