Joan shook her head. "I must learn to be your wife," she said. "Now it--it dazzles and frightens me--" "Joan!" "Have you forgotten, Kenny, that I have lived my life up here in hills and trees. And you--" "Joan, please!" he begged in distress. "But I can't forget," said the girl steadily. "Whenever I read the article Garry sent about 'Kennicott O'Neill, brilliant painter'--think of it, Kenny! 'Brilliant painter!'--I go back and read again just to be sure I'm not dreaming. I've been so much alone that the thought of going out into your world with you--terrifies me. I could not bear to have you--sorry!" "Mavourneen!" he said, shocked. There were tears upon her cheeks. "I would only ask that you be your own dear self," said Kenny gently. "And every man of my world and every woman will stare and envy!" "I must know music and French," said Joan, checking the need upon her fingers. "I must know how to dance. Now when I talk I must have something to say. Otherwise I feel shy and quiet. I must learn how to talk a great deal without saying anything as you do sometimes." He laughed in delight at the final need. "All of it," declared Kenny happily, "I can teach you." "No," said Joan with a definite shake of her head. "You would kiss me. And I would always be right even when you knew I was wrong." His eyes laughed at her mischievously. But he caught her hands and pressed them to his lips. "Listen, dear," he pleaded. "My world isn't a world of social climbers or snobs or dollar-worshippers. It's a world of gifted men and women who haven't time to look up your ancestors or your bank balance before they decide to be friendly and kind. I know a poet whose mother was a gypsy, a painter who's a baron and he says he can't help it, a French girl who paints millionaire babies and her father was a tight-rope walker in a circus. My world, Joan, is the happy-go-lucky Bohemia of success and the democracy of real talent. We're actors and painters and sculptors and writers and artists in general and all in all I think we work a little more and play a little more, enjoy a little more and suffer a little more than the rest of the world. Once in a while to be sure a head grows a bit too big and then we all take a bop at it! But the big thing is we're human; just folks, as a man in the grillroom said one night. We're human and we're kind. It's not a smart set, dear. And it's not an ultra-fashionable four-hundredy thing. God forbid! It's the kind of Bohemia I love. And I'm sure you'll love it too." Her eyes were shining. In the dusk her color came to him like the glimmer of a flower. "Kenny!" she exclaimed. "How wonderful it all is, you and all of it! And yet if--if I feel as I do, you must let me go for a year. Otherwise if I lack confidence in myself--Oh, can't you see, Kenny, I shall be shy and frightened and always ill at ease!" "Go!" he echoed blankly.