“Rod! Rory, my darling!” Cis caught her breath, her words almost a cry. “I want to come and I can’t! It’s too soon, Rod dear! Only two months; not quite that! I could leap with you into fire when you call me, yet I can’t marry, not so soon! Girls--girls--Oh, yes! Girls have to get ready, get clothes and things, and it takes time, Rod!” “Cis, you’re a royal princess, a giver by rank and nature! Would you put me off with such a mean, a dishonest excuse? Do you know what you ask when you ask me to wait? You, the generous, the unselfish, the royal giver! As though you hadn’t clothes! If you have enough to go to Lucas and Henderson’s every day you have enough to live in your own home, hidden from all eyes but mine--and they won’t see your clothing, my Holly! We’ll live only about seventy years, all told; less than fifty more! Will you waste time? How dare you waste time, youth time, too! We should have been married these four years, at least. You could have been married at eighteen, if I’d have known you then--No, we couldn’t! I couldn’t have married you then, my own. You are my own, Cis! Nothing else is mine! Cis, I’ve had a harder life than you know; I’m going to tell you when we’re in our home, sitting down all alone, you in my arms, your dear red head on my shoulder! But don’t be a niggard with me, generous Cis! Make up my hard luck to me. Oh, make it up to me! You’ll wipe out memory of the word hard luck! Cis, how can you think of delaying life together? It’s cowardly, unfair, cold love, and these things are not in you! Christmas, Holly?” Rod had pleaded with such quivering earnestness that Cis paled and trembled before it, swept beyond her power to hesitate, even beyond deciding. “My poor Rory! Were you so badly off four years ago?” she murmured. “But I’d have married you, if you were a beggar with a little dog on a string! I’ll come home to you at Christmas, then, my own Rodney; I’ll keep my birthday with my husband in my own home. Oh, Rory O’Moore!” For Rodney had fallen at her feet and was kissing her hands over and over again, kissing the ruby which he had placed upon one of them, as if he feared his own joy, and for the moment dared not rise to the level of the girl who had shackled her brave freedom for his sake, who so trusted him and sacrificed for him.