"You're just talking," said Preston calmly. "Keep on if it amuses you. It doesn't mean anything at all to me. Not at all." His success in life was largely due to the fact that he always kept the main object in view and never permitted himself to be diverted by side issues. "Your personal appearance ten years from now has nothing to do with the matter. We may both be dead ten years from now. There is only one question to be discussed and that is, 'Do you love me?'" The petals fell from the red, red rose as Alice twisted it nervously in her fingers. "I think I have given you ample proof of my liking for you," she said at last, "but the _loving_ is obscured in doubts." "Forget them, for my sake," he murmured. "Can't you, won't you, Alice?" "If I could only get away from those mental pictures," she confessed. "They stand between us like a barrier. Just think of arriving at the point where you want to doze after dinner and dream over some nice, slow, old book, with your head comfortably nodding now and then. And the fire flickering and the cat purring on the rug. Lovely, isn't it? And instead, think of realizing wearily that you've got to spend the evening at the opera or playing bridge. And that, of course, means turning yourself at an early hour into the hands of your maid for repairs and decoration. And then you've got to sit upright the whole evening because your stays, which are guaranteed to give you the lithe and willowy figure of youth, will not let you lean back. And you do not dare to smile, because you will crack the kalsomining on your face; neither may you move your head, you are so afraid that the curls and puffs and braids may not be pinned on tight. Oh, it's a dog's life!" she sighed heavily. "And it's not for you," Preston spoke firmly. "There is nothing coltish about me." Alice laughed, it was so true. "Business is all that very deeply interests me, and amusements bore me very much. I like the after-dinner doze and the fire and cat already. You will probably have more of that kind of thing than you like, if you marry me. Alice, will you not consider?" "Mrs. Wilstead, Mrs. Wilstead," a page's voice rang through the shrubbery and came nearer and nearer and Alice took from him a thick letter addressed to her in Isabel Hewston's hand and adorned with a special delivery stamp. "From a dear friend," Alice exclaimed. "Will you excuse me while I look at it? There may be some matter of importance, you know." In Preston's manner there was no hint of his annoyance. He behaved as well as a man could when interrupted in the most fervent declarations of affection which the limitations of his nature permitted him. He even suggested that he withdraw, and rose, hat in hand. Could complaisance, consideration go further? There were only two days before him, and she had never been so near yielding before.