"I fear I must," he said with decision, "no matter what it costs. Whether this strain with Hamlen has weakened my resolve, or because the romance of the Japanese Benten hovers over this spot and bids me speak, I must tell you, little girl, that my friendship has only been a blind to cover something far deeper, which I have no right to offer you. The time has come for you to know that, for it will tell you what you are to me. I would relinquish all I possess to turn back the years until they gave me the right to ask you to be my wife." She started to her feet and tried to speak, but he stopped her. "You don't need to answer," he insisted. "I understand only too well." "But the girl you met too late--" "Was you, dear child! I am a generation ahead of my time; otherwise I believe it might have been." He smiled as he always did when deeply moved, but this time the sadness showed through the mask. As the full comprehension of his words came to her, Merry's color faded but she looked into his face with a woman's candor. "Is the difference in our ages the only reason?" she asked. "Alas! that is enough!" "No, no!" she cried impulsively. "You wouldn't let that stand between us!" "Do you realize what you are saying, Merry? It can't be that you understand!" "I do! I do!" she cried. "Please don't stop. Say it to me!" He placed his arm around her and drew her to him. "Can it possibly be?" he demanded incredulously. "Can this really have come to me?" Merry hid her face on his shoulder. "Say it!" she insisted, "please,--please say it!" "Merry--child--I love you!" Her arm crept about his neck, and then her radiant face came out from its hiding place, and held itself ready for the consecration. * * * * * XXXVIII * * * * * They lingered in happy disregard of passing time, each seeming to fear disillusionment if they deserted their magic garden. Huntington no longer felt the oppression of the years, Merry no longer drifted from her anchorage. "Monty," she whispered slyly,--"dare I call you Monty?" "If you don't, I shall call you incorrigible!" "Monty,--who is Benten?" She asked the question so hesitatingly, as if ashamed to admit her ignorance, that he laughed. "Benten?" he repeated after her. "Surely you know Benten! She is none other than an adorable Japanese lady of antiquity who is known as the deity of Beauty, the divinity of Love and the Goddess of Eloquence. I have no doubt she has other attributes, but those are enough for us, aren't they, little sweetheart?" "Oh, Monty,--you know so much!" she sighed. "It is going to be a terrible strain!" She seemed very winsome in her present mood, and he smiled happily. "The strain will be on me, dear heart," he protested. "I have assumed wisdom all these years with no danger of being unmasked; now you will find me out.