“Exactly. He never hurried in his life. Why, he has been thinking for the last six years of getting his house painted. He talks it over with me every little while, and picks out the colour, and there the matter stays. He’s fond of me, and he means to ask me to have him sometime. The only question is--will the time ever come?” “Why don’t you hurry him up?” asked Anne impatiently. Theodora went back to her stitches with another laugh. “If Ludovic could be hurried up, I’m not the one to do it. I’m too shy. It sounds ridiculous to hear a woman of my age and inches say that, but it is true. Of course, I know it’s the only way any Speed ever did make out to get married. For instance, there’s a cousin of mine married to Ludovic’s brother. I don’t say she proposed to him out and out, but, mind you, Anne, it wasn’t far from it. I couldn’t do anything like that. I DID try once. When I realized that I was getting sere and mellow, and all the girls of my generation were going off on either hand, I tried to give Ludovic a hint. But it stuck in my throat. And now I don’t mind. If I don’t change Dix to Speed until I take the initiative, it will be Dix to the end of life. Ludovic doesn’t realize that we are growing old, you know. He thinks we are giddy young folks yet, with plenty of time before us. That’s the Speed failing. They never find out they’re alive until they’re dead.” “You’re fond of Ludovic, aren’t you?” asked Anne, detecting a note of real bitterness among Theodora’s paradoxes. “Laws, yes,” said Theodora candidly. She did not think it worth while to blush over so settled a fact. “I think the world and all of Ludovic. And he certainly does need somebody to look after HIM. He’s neglected--he looks frayed. You can see that for yourself. That old aunt of his looks after his house in some fashion, but she doesn’t look after him. And he’s coming now to the age when a man needs to be looked after and coddled a bit. I’m lonesome here, and Ludovic is lonesome up there, and it does seem ridiculous, doesn’t it? I don’t wonder that we’re the standing joke of Grafton. Goodness knows, I laugh at it enough myself. I’ve sometimes thought that if Ludovic could be made jealous it might spur him along. But I never could flirt and there’s nobody to flirt with if I could. Everybody hereabouts looks upon me as Ludovic’s property and nobody would dream of interfering with him.” “Theodora,” cried Anne, “I have a plan!” “Now, what are you going to do?” exclaimed Theodora. Anne told her. At first Theodora laughed and protested. In the end, she yielded somewhat doubtfully, overborne by Anne’s enthusiasm. “Well, try it, then,” she said, resignedly. “If Ludovic gets mad and leaves me, I’ll be worse off than ever. But nothing venture, nothing win. And there is a fighting chance, I suppose. Besides, I must admit I’m tired of his dilly-dallying.”