This matter of great importance settled, there was silence for a time. He looked upon her with devouring eyes. At last he broke forth: "Now I want to draw my breath, but find it difficult. I am going to lean back and study you and try to think of the world as it has rearranged itself. I have not grasped it all yet. It is odd; it is great! I have you and you can't get away from me now! It is wonderful, this sudden possession, the possession rightly, even in all the conventional, in all that the weakling centuries dictate. No wonder that I am dazed. Ever as the world revolves, come new revelations of thought and of all existence. I dreamed that I knew things, but I didn't. "What are you going to do about it, dearie? My heart is like a kettle in which everything is boiling, and it is foaming over the top with love for you. Can you not help me? What are you going to put into the kettle to stop this unseemly boiling? I don't want you to pour in cold water, or take the kettle off, or put the fire out. Oh, well, let 'er boil! I am afraid, my dear, that you will have to take care of me most of the time. I'm irresponsible. "Let us talk about something practical, my dear woman," he rambled on. "You look at me with your great eyes, and you know what the inevitable is. You know that you and I must face the world and all its dragons together after this. What fun it will be! Have you any suggestions to make? By the way, I like the trick of the top of your garments, the arrangement about your throat. You have tact and taste, and sense, my dear, yet you lack a mountain of judgment and discretion. You have intrusted yourself to me, reckless person! Now, cut loose and tell me something. I think that expression 'cut loose' is one of the best of all our Americanisms. Tell me something." What could the woman say? She was puzzled over this wild, fumbling-thoughted lover, with his commingled gleams of fact and fancy. But ever to the more admirable of the sexes comes divination. There came into this gentle woman's mind a sudden radiance of comprehension. She knew what he was seeking. He wanted her, with all the selfishness of love, to be foolish with him. And this is what she said: "I don't know. I only know what I think of his heart and soul, of the resources and qualities of one man in the world and that I am but the dependent woman--and I am most content, dear." Then she became more venturesome and spoke more definitely and practically, as she knew he wished her to. She looked him squarely in the eyes: