Annie looked inconceivably young. She knitted her candid brows and stared at him with round eyes of perplexity. Karl von Rosen shouted with laughter. "Oh, well, if that is all," he said, "I object strenuously to your playing pinocle with your grandmother on Sunday. The only way you can manage will be to play hookey from church." "I need not do that always," said Annie. "My aunts take naps Sunday afternoons, but I am sure grandmother could keep awake if she thought she could be wicked." "Well, you can either play hookey from church, or run away Sunday afternoons, or if you prefer and she is able, I will drive your grandmother over here and you can play pinocle in my study." "Then I do think she will live to be a hundred," said Annie with a peal of laughter. "Stop laughing and kiss me," said Von Rosen. "I seldom kiss anybody." "That is the reason." When Annie looked up from her lover's shoulder, a pair of topaz eyes were mysteriously regarding her. "The cat never saw me kiss anybody," said Von Rosen. "Do you think the cat knows?" asked Annie, blushing and moving away a little. "Who knows what any animal knows or does not know?" replied Von Rosen. "When we discover that mystery, we may have found the key to existence." Then the cat sprang into Annie's blue lap and she stroked his yellow back and looked at Von Rosen with eyes suddenly reflective, rather coolly. "After all, I, nor nobody else, ever heard of such a thing as this," said she. "Do you mean that you consider this an engagement?" she asked in astonishment. "I most certainly do." "After we have only really seen and talked to each other twice!" "It has been all our lives and we have just found it out," said Von Rosen. "Of course, it is unusual, but who cares? Do you?" "No, I don't," said Annie. They leaned together over the yellow cat and kissed each other. [Illustration: They leaned together over the yellow cat and kissed each other] "But what an absurd minister's wife I shall be," said Annie. "To think of your marrying a girl who has staid at home from church and played cards with her grandmother!" "I am not at all sure," said Von Rosen, "that you do not get more benefit, more spiritual benefit, than you would have done from my sermons." "I think," said Annie, "that you are just about as funny a minister as I shall be a minister's wife." "I never thought I should be married at all." "Why not?" "I did not care for women." "Then why do you now?" "Because you are a woman."