Part 8

"Are you offended?" he asked, looking out of the window.

There was a slight negative motion of her head.

A party of assorted travellers rose from their table and passed them, smiling discreetly; the old minister across the aisle mused in his coffee-cup, caressing his shaven face with wrinkled fingers. The dining-car grew very still.

"It's in the blood," he said, under his breath; "my grandparents eloped; my father's courtship lasted three days from the time he first met my mother--you see what my brother has done in twenty-four hours.... We do things more quickly in these days.... Please--please don't look so unhappy!"

"I--I am not unhappy.... I am willing to--hear you. You were saying something about--about--"

"About love."

"I--think so. Wait until those people pass!"

He waited, apparently hypnotized by the beauty of the car ceiling. Then: "Of course, if you were not going to be my sister-in-law to-morrow, I'd not go into family matters."

"No, of course not," she murmured.

So he gave her a brief outline of his own affairs, and she listened with bent head until there came the pause which was her own cue.

"Why do you tell me this?" she asked, innocently.

"It--it--why, because I love you."

On common ground once more, she prepared for battle, but to her consternation she found the battle already ended and an enemy calmly preparing for her surrender.

"But when--when do you propose to--to do this?" she asked, in an unsteady voice.

"Now," he said, firmly.

"Now? Marry me at once?"

"I love you enough to wait a million years--but I won't. I always expected to fall in love; I've rather fancied it would come like this when it came; and I swore I'd never let the chance slip by. We're a headlong family--but a singularly loyal one. We love but once in our lifetime; and when we love we know it."

"Do you think that this is that one time?"

"There is no doubt left in me."

"Then"--she covered her face with her hands, leaning heavily on the table--"then what on earth are we to do?"

"Promise each other to love."

"Do you promise?"

"Yes, I do promise, forever. Do you?"

She looked up, pale as a ghost. "Yes," she said.

"Then--please say it," he whispered.

Some people rose and left the car. She sat apparently buried in colorless reverie. Twice her voice failed her; he bent nearer; and--

"I love you," she said.

A PILGRIM