Gently, very fondly, he gathered her into his arms and held her close. And without saying a word, his manner gave assurance of contentment enough to satisfy any woman. 'Then you are not going to scold me?' he asked at length, without releasing her. 'For what?' 'Bringing you into such perverse circumstances.' Hazel looked at him wistfully. 'I knew how it would be,' she said. 'I knew myself. That was why I said no. At least, partly why.' 'Do you regret my action?' 'I was naughty enough yesterday morning to hope you would,' said Hazel with a confessing laugh. 'I told Prim just now, privately, that if we ever went that journey I spoke of, she should go too.' The colour flushed up into Hazel's face, and went away again, but she gave neither word nor look. 'You are sorry?' 'Never ask such questions afterwards!' said Hazel. And she would have disengaged herself, but he would not let her. 'Do you not know better than that?' 'Hazel,' he said, gravely though full of tenderness,—'you and I are not going to live to ourselves?' Like a statue, so the girl stood; but with a rush of thoughts that for a minute she could not head off. 'He might live to me—just a little bit,—' so they ran. 'That is what I shall do to him,—under God,—always!'—Then tramp, tramp, came the words: "The man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man,"—and if ever in her life Wych Hazel felt rebellious, she did so then. The old grievance of man's right of way,—the fact that it _was_ a right,—but with it a softer feeling, hurt and sore, that he could even wish for anybody else but her on such a journey; that _her_ right should not have come in there. "The moon looks down on many brooks,— "The brook can see no moon but one!" He might at least have consulted her. Suppose she had asked somebody?—Wych Hazel drew half of a very long sigh, choked the rest back, then raised her grave brown eyes, and answered, 'No.' Did he see what was beneath them? For a peculiar fire leapt into the grey eyes. He spoke in the same tone he had used before. 'Suppose, Hazel, we lose twenty-five per cent. of our pleasure? And suppose Primrose gains a hundred?—' He was holding her close and tenderly, looking down into her eyes with all the power of his. 'Well,' said Hazel,—'I suppose she would.' 'And I suppose _we_ should. I ask nobody for _my_ pleasure to be a third with us. I suppose it will be a trial to me when we go home, to have Heinert at the dinner table and talking to me in the evening. And yet, Hazel, just because you are so much to me, I dare not but pour pleasure into every cup I see standing empty; even though I let a few drops of my own go.'