"No--oh, no, no, no! Don't you understand I must take my own time? I've won the right to it; I'm winning out, Duane--winning back myself. I must have my little year of self-respect. Oh, _can't_ you understand that you mustn't sweep me off my feet this way?--that I'm too proud to go to you--have you take me while there remains the faintest shadow of risk?" "But I don't care! I want you!" he cried. "I love you for it; I want you, Duane. But be fair to me; don't take me until I am as clean and straight and untainted as the girl I was--as I am becoming--as I will be--surely, surely--my darling!" She caught his hands in hers and, close to him, looked into his eyes smilingly, tearfully, and a little proudly. The sensitive under-lip quivered; but she held her head high. "Don't ask me to give you what is less perfect than I can make it. Don't let me remember my gift and be ashamed, dear. There must be no memory of your mistaken generosity to trouble me in the years to come--the long, splendid years with you. Let me always remember that I gave you myself as I really can be; let me always know that neither your love nor compassion were needed to overlook any flaw in what I give." She bent her proud little head and laid her lips on his hands, which she held close between her own. "You can so easily carry me by storm, Duane; and in your arms I might be weak enough to waver and forget and promise to give you now what there is of me if you demanded it. Don't ask it; don't carry me out of my depth. There is more to me than I can give you yet. Let me wait to give it lest I remember your unfairness and my humiliation through the years to come." She lifted her lips to his, offering them; he kissed her; then, with a little laugh, she abandoned his hands and stepped back, mocking, tormenting, enjoying his discomfiture. "It's cruel, isn't it, you poor lamb! But do you know the year is already flying very, very fast? Do you think I'm not counting the days?"--and, suddenly yielding--"if you wish--if you truly do wish it, dear, I will marry you on the very day that the year--my year--ends. Come over here"--she seated herself and made a place for him--"and you won't caress me too much--will you? You wouldn't make me unhappy, would you?... Why, yes, I suppose that I might let you touch me occasionally.... And kiss me--at rare intervals.... But not--as we have.... You won't, will you? Then you may sit here--a little nearer if you think it wise--and I'm ready to listen to your views concerning anything on earth, Duane, even including love and wedlock." It was very hard for them to judge just what they might or might not permit each other--how near it was perfectly safe to sit, how long they might, with impunity, look into each other's eyes in that odd and rather silly fashion which never seems to be out of date.