nteresting, and I enjoyed watching you."

"Tell me; suppose I had kissed Miss Arkwright. Would you have forgiven
me?"

The answer came quickly.

"Yes. But I'm so glad you didn't!"

"I, too," he confessed. And then, "I think that's all."

There was a complete silence for half a minute, while he struggled to
find words to say to this most lovely woman. He could find none. Each
knew the other's heart already, and words seemed vain and meaningless.
"Oh, Beatrice darling!" he said, almost with a sob, "don't keep me
waiting any longer! I want you! I want you!"

"Lal, dearest!" she said.

* * * * *

"And this is the end," she said presently with a little sigh. "We shall
just get married and settle into stodgy conventional people. It sounds
flat, doesn't it?"

"Why should it be the end? We can be happy and ourselves, too. We can
still have romance, adventures, though youth passes----"

She shook her head.

"No; we shall have happiness, but never the same as this. We have been
lucky and had the most splendid fun. But now, whether we wish it or not,
we shall have to grow up and try to find out what life is."

"Well, we'll bargain for one adventure a year, at least," he stipulated.
"Old or young, we'll have that!"

"We must earn it, Lal!" she said with a wise smile. "We've no right to
such happiness unless----"

"Make me your debtor now!" he said, clasping her more closely.
"Beatrice, darling, I love you! Do you realize it? I love you!"

She breathed one word, the most perfect pledge a man could hope for.

"Egotist!"

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gay Adventure, by Richard Bird

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GAY ADVENTURE ***

***** This file should be named 33823.txt or 33823.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/8/2/33823/

Produced by David Clarke, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying cop