Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-95.djvu/211

 his side, it flies by on woven wings.

Conversation between Marcia and Gordon neither lagged nor sagged, but managed to keep up with the hurrying flight of time and retain an interest element ever-present as well.

As Gordon Sloan gazed on the face of his lovely companion, the same old enraptured spell commenced to creep over him. He was enamored of her beauty, gloriously, unhappily in love, and he knew he was going to propose, he felt it coming on. Also, he was aware of a frightful dearth of appropriate words.

"It seems to me that chauffeur has been away a remarkably long time," said Marcia, thoughtfully.

"Are you getting impatient," he asked.

"No, I'm perfectly content, but his continued absence seems odd."

"I hope he doesn't get back for hours," vehemently burst out Gordon. "I'd rather have him die on the road than come back just now."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because—because—," his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. (What was the use of a college education if it didn't give him any better command over English than this?)

"Because—"" he continued to splutter like an embarrassed schoolboy. "Because I want you to marry me first!"

To say she was surprised would scarcely have begun to express her true condition. She was astonished, amazed and thunderstruck all in one. But in spite of herself, she could not help laughing.

"That is impossible," she replied. "There isn't a minister within twenty miles.

"I mean I want you to promise to marry me," he corrected, his face the latest shade of tango-red.

"I'm serious," he continued, more calmly. "I loved you the first day I found you alone in these woods. I would have proposed then only it would have seemed odd."

"Decidedly so," she conceded, smiling.

Gordon seized her hands. you will marry me," he said.

Marcia shook her head and her lips formed themselves into a delicious pout.

"How do I know I love you?" she asked.

"I don't know," he replied eagerly. "But you do, and you're going to be my wife!"

She shook her head. "I cannot decide," she faltered. "I admit, I care a great deal for you, but I hardly think it is love."

"Then your answer is 'no'?" he said wistfully.

She bowed her head in affirmation. "But not an emphatic 'no'," she qualified. "I want to be sure that I love, before I marry."

"Then you'll never marry," he exclaimed, a trifle angrily, "because you will never be able to make up your mind. You're the most undecided woman I ever met."

"I wish the chauffeur would come back," she murmured, in order to change the subject.

"He isn't coming back!" blazed Gordon. "I sent him away purposely so that I could have you alone. There was only one thing the matter with this car. It had a chauffeur. Which fault was easily remedied."

Marcia turned her head so that he could not see her face and they rode back to "The Oaks" in silence.

For the next six months Gordon Sloan proposed to Marcia Loring regularly twice a week, but ever with the same result. The