"I want to speak plainly. Bob. I may hurt you, although--I'll try not to. Yes, I have believed that--you cared for me. I suppose I've seen it, and I expect I've been vexed that you've never told me. I--I wanted you to." "Wanted me to!" cried Bob. "You have never given me a chance. And--and you always seemed to care for--for those other fellows." "I wanted you to make your chances. If--if a man loves a girl, he should dare anything to get her. Anything. What do I care about Hector Trevanion? He hasn't a thought in his head above his latest horse and his newest uniform. But how could I help being friendly with him, when you--have always on the slightest pretext been ready to leave me with him." "And you wanted me all the time!" There was a note of joy and triumph in his voice. "I don't know," replied the girl. "I'll be absolutely frank with you, Bob. You are not the sort of man I wanted to love. Yes, I'll admit it--I wanted to love a soldier, a sailor, a man of action. I can never admire a man who will be content to spend his days in a library poring over old dusty books. That's why I have been angry when I've heard you glorifying these useless old fossils. And yet--oh, Bob!" and the girl concluded with a sob. "Do you mean," and Bob's voice was tremulous, "that you cared for me all the time, although you--you didn't like my plans for my future? That you preferred me to Trevanion? Oh, Nancy!" "As though a girl must care for six feet of flesh without brains because she isn't a blue-stocking. Why--why--couldn't you see, Bob?" "And I say--oh, Nancy, does this mean that you care for me--love me?" "I'm afraid I do," she half-laughed, half-sobbed. "Afraid?" "Yes, don't you see? You are not in the least like the man I wanted to love. You could have won your blue as a cricketer, but you wouldn't take the trouble to get it. A man in Oxford told me that you could be the best three-quarter in the 'Varsity Rugby team, but that you were too lazy to play. You've been a sort of negative creature, while I love a man of action. What are old shrivelled manuscripts worth to the world to-day? Who cares about the sayings of some old dead and forgotten German, or some obscure passages in _Bede's Ecclesiastical History_, when there's a great surging life all around us to-day? History is only a record of what took place in the past; I love the thought of a man who wants to make history, who sets his ideas to action. And you, Bob, you have told me again and again that you want to spend your life in historical research, or some such useless thing." "But--but, Nancy, what does all that matter when I love you--love you with all my life? Besides----"