"You offer me your guest-room?" she said in pretence of surprise. "How _very_ nice of you, Mr. Neville. I--ah--will condescend to occupy it--for this evening only--" Her eyes brightened into laughter: "Oh, isn't it delicious, Louis! Isn't it perfectly heavenly to _know_ that we are utterly and absolutely all right,--and to know that the world outside would be perfectly certain that we are not? What a darling you are!" Still holding her hands behind her back she bent forward and touched her lips to his, daintily, fastidious in the light contact, "Where is that picture of 'Womanhood'?" she asked. He drew out the easel, adjusting the canvas to the light, and rolled a big chair up in front of it. "Please sit there," she said; and seated herself on the padded arm, still keeping her hands behind her back. "Are you concealing anything from me?" he asked. "Never mind. I want to look at your picture," she added slowly as her eyes fell upon the canvas. Minute after minute she sat there in silence, neither stirring nor offering comment. And after a long time he moved restlessly in the depths of the chair beside her. Then she turned and looked down at him: "Yes," she said, "it is really great.... And, _somehow_, I am lonely. Take me, Louis." He drew her into his arms. She lay very silent against his breast for a while, and at last raised her curiously troubled eyes. "You are going to be a very, very great painter, aren't you, Louis?" He laughed and kissed her, watching her face. "Don't be too great--so great that I shall feel too--too lonely," she whispered. Then his eyes fell upon the ring which he had given her--and which she had gently put aside. She was wearing it on her betrothal finger. "Where did you--find it?" he said unsteadily. "In its box on your dresser." "Do you realise what it means?" "Yes.... And I am wearing it." "Valerie!" Her head nestled closer: "Because I am going to marry you, Louis.... You were right.... If I fail, as your wife, to win my way in your world, then it will be because I have attempted the impossible. Which is no crime.... Who was it said 'Not failure, but low aim is crime'?" She sighed, nestling closer like a child seeking rest: "I am not coward enough to run away from you and destiny.... And if I stay, only two ways remain.... And the lawful is the better for us both...." She laid her flushed cheek against his: "Because," she said dreamily, "there is one thing of which I never thought--children.... And I don't, perhaps, exactly understand, but I realise that--such things have happened;--and that it could happen to--us." She lay silent for a while, her fingers restless on his shoulder; then she spoke again in the same dreamy voice of a half-awakened child: