"Where and what would you be after twenty years?" "Probably a wrinkled spinster at Santa Barbara." "You wouldn't go away and leave me?" "Certainly I would, if I couldn't wake you up." He looked into her mirthful eyes and lovely face. Oh, how lovely it was, flushed from heat and climbing! "Madge," he said, impetuously, "you have waked me--every faculty of my soul, every longing of my heart. Will you be my wife?" Her face grew scarlet. She sprang to her feet, and asked, with half serious, half comic dismay, "Will I be your _what!_" "I asked you to be my wife," he began, confusedly. "Oh, Graydon, this is worse than asking me to be your sister!" she replied, laughing. "Your alternations fairly make me dizzy." "Truly, Madge," he stammered, "a man can scarcely pay a woman a greater compliment--" "Oh, it's a compliment!" she interrupted. "No," he burst out, with more than his first impetuosity; "I'm in earnest. You, who almost read my thoughts, know that I am in earnest--that--" By a strong yet simple gesture she checked him. "You scarcely realize what you are asking, Graydon," she said, gravely. "I have no doubt your present emotion is unforced and sincere, but it requires time to prove earnestness. You were equally sure you were in earnest a short time since, and I had little place, comparatively, in your thoughts." "But I did not know you then as I do now." "You thought you did. You had vivid impressions then about me, and more vivid about another woman. You are acting now under another impression, and from impulse. If I ever give myself away it shall not be in response to an impulse." "Madge, you misjudge me--" he began, hotly. "I think I know most of the facts, and you know how matter-of-fact I am. You may think I do not know what love is, but I do. It is a priceless thing. It is a woman's life, and all that makes a true woman's life. It is something that one cannot always give at will, or wisely; but if I had the power to give it at all, it should be to a man who had earned the right to ask it, and not to one who, within a few short days, had formed new impressions about me. Love is not the affection of a friend, or even of a sister. There is no necessity for me to marry." "Then you refuse me?" he said, a little stiffly. "Certainly I refuse you, Graydon. Has my manner led you to think that I was eager for a chance to accept you?" "Oh, no, indeed! You have checked my slightest tendencies toward sentiment." "Thank you for the assurance. I do not care in the least for sentiment." His airy fabric of hope, of almost certainty, had been shattered so suddenly that he was overwhelmed. There seemed but one conclusion.