Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/454

 , when one could have the pleasure and fun there was in being engaged, it was not tempting Providence to take the step farther and get married was the whimsical question that occurred to Floyd in his growing contentment with his situation, his increasing certainty that he had done the right thing. That he could invite Marion to speculate with him on this point, and that they could sit together elaborating humorous theories and arguments with impersonal seriousness, was, even though he might not perceive it, a sign of progress. Indeed, since Marion's return to Avalon, there had been a rapid development of their intimacy, a rapid growth of confidence. In the beginning a laborious sense that this was one of the duties of his position had compelled Floyd to go to her and share with her his problems and perplexities; never before having made any one the partner of his closest thoughts, he yielded with reluctance to this violation of his sanctuary. But gradually he was won by Marion's responsiveness; to make his disclosures ceased to be a duty, became more and more a pleasure. He was sometimes conscious of how much he had missed hitherto through not having at moments some one in whom to confide—some woman. He had had his impulses to confess to Lydia and ask her help, but he had always proudly withheld himself from this; nothing, he felt, could be more unmanly than to pour out to another man's wife one's innermost experiences. But he was finding now that there was nothing unmanly in discussing with Marion problems of a kind which he had always before locked up in his breast and struggled with unaided.