My tone was low, but she started, drew back into the brougham, became an outline in the deep shadow. In another mood that might have angered me. Just then it hurt me so deeply that to remember it to-day is to feel a faint ache in the scar of the long-healed wound. My face was not hidden as was hers; so, perhaps, she saw. At any rate, her voice tried to be friendly as she said: “Well--I have crossed the Rubicon. And I don't regret. It was silly of me to cry. I thought I had been through so much that I was beyond such weakness. But you will find me calm from now on, and reasonable.” “Not too reasonable, please,” said I, with an attempt at her lightness. “A reasonable woman is as trying as an unreasonable man.” “But we are going to be sensible with each other,” she urged, “like two friends. Aren't we?” “We are going to be what we are going to be,” said I. “We'll have to take life as it comes.” That clumsy reminder set her to thinking, stirred her vague uneasiness in those strange circumstances to active alarm. For presently she said, in a tone that was not so matter-of-course as she had tried to make it: “We'll go now to my Uncle Frank's. He's a brother of my father's. I always used to like him best--and still do. But he married a woman mama thought--queer. They hadn't much, so he lives away up on the West Side--One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street.” “The wise plan, the only wise plan,” said I, not so calm as she must have thought me, “is to go to my partner's house and send for a minister.” “Not to-night,” she replied nervously. “Take me to Uncle Frank's, and to-morrow we can discuss what to do and how to do it.” “To-night,” I persisted. “We must be married to-night. No more uncertainty and indecision and weakness. Let us begin bravely, Anita!” “To-morrow,” she said. “But not to-night. I must think it over.” “To-night,” I repeated. “To-morrow will be full of its own problems. This is to-night's.” She shook her head, and I saw that the struggle between us had begun--the struggle against her timidity and conventionality. “No, not tonight.” This in her tone for finality. To argue with any woman in such circumstances would be dangerous; to argue with her would have been fatal. To reason with a woman is to flatter her into suspecting you of weakness and herself of strength. I told the chauffeur to turn about and go slowly up town. She settled back into her corner of the brougham. Neither of us spoke until we were passing Grant's Tomb. Then she started out of her secure confidence in my obedience, and exclaimed: “This is not the way!” And her voice had in it the hasty call-to-arms. “No,” I replied, determined to push the panic into a rout. “As I told you, our future shall be settled to-night.” That in _my_ tone for finality.