“Come home, and marry me.” Perfectly patient, perfectly confident, perfectly gentle. He reached for her hand again, and took them both, still clasped, in his own. “Gail, we’ve waited quite long enough. It’s not doing either one of us any good for you to be here. The best thing is for us to be married right now.”
For the first time she turned her eyes full upon him.
“You are taking a great deal for granted, Howard,” and she wore a calm decision which he had not before seen in her. “There has never been any agreement between us.”
“There has been an understanding,” he retorted, releasing her unresponsive hands and looking her squarely in the eyes, with a slight frown on his brow.
“Never,” she incisively reminded him, and her piquant chin pointed upwards. “I’ve always told you that I could make no promises.”
That came as a shock and a surprise. It could not be possible that she did not care for him!
“Why, Gail dear, I love you!” he suddenly told her, with more fervour than she had ever heard in his tone. He slipped from the edge of the couch to his knee on the floor, where he could look up into her downcast eyes. He put his arm around her, and drew her closer. He clasped her hands in his own strong palm. “Listen, Gail dear; we grew up together.” He was tender now, tender and pleading, and his voice had in it ranges of modulation which it had never developed before this night. “You were my very first sweetheart; and the only one. Even as a boy in school, when you were only a little kiddie, I made up my mind to marry you, and I’ve never given up that dream. All my life I’ve loved you, stronger and deeper as the years went on, until now the love that is in me sways every thought, every action, every emotion. I love you, Gail dear! All my heart and all my soul is in it.”
She had not drawn away from his embrace, she had not removed her hands from his clasp; instead, she had yielded somewhat towards this old friend.
“I can’t do without you any longer, Gail!” he impetuously went on, detecting that yielding in her. “You must marry me! Tell me that you will!”
She disengaged herself from him very gently.
“I can’t, Howard.” Her voice was so low that he could scarcely catch the words, and her face was filled with sorrow.
