Susan turns her startled eyes upon him, grows crimson, and then deadly white. She pulls her hands out of his and turns away, but too late—too late to hide the rapture in her eyes, that the heavy tears in vain are trying to drown. ‘Susan, my darling! my own sweet little girl! Susan’—his arms are round her now—‘is it true? So you do care for me! For me—such an old fellow next to you—you’—clasping her to him and laughing—‘are only a baby, you know. But my baby now, eh? Oh, Susan, is it true?’ Susan tightens her hand upon his arm, but answer makes she none. ‘Afterwards you may be sorry; thirty-four and nineteen—a great many milestones between us, you see.’ ‘Ah, it is you who will be sorry!’ says Susan, lifting her head a minute from the safe shelter of his breast to look at him. It is a lovely look. Poor James! if he had only seen it! ‘Are you going to lead me such a life as that?’ says Crosby, laughing. ‘I don’t believe it.’ ‘You know what I mean.’ ‘I don’t, indeed. I don’t even know if you love me yet.’ ‘Oh, as for that——’ Suddenly she laughs, too, and with the sweetest tenderness slips one arm round his neck and draws his head down to hers. ‘And, besides, I’m very nearly twenty,’ says she. ‘Look here,’ says Crosby presently; ‘too much happiness is bad for any man. Now, you sit over there’—putting her into a far corner of the old garden-seat—‘and I’ll sit here’—seating himself with the sternest virtue at the other end. ‘Don’t come within a mile of me again for a while, and let us be sensible and talk business. When will you marry me—next week?’ ‘Next week?’—with a laugh—‘is that talking business?’ ‘The best business.’ ‘Oh, nonsense!’ ‘Where does the nonsense come in? I’ve been waiting all my life for you, and what’s the good of waiting any longer—even a day? See here, now, Susan. In seven days you could——’ ‘I could not, indeed!’ She breaks off suddenly. ‘You are coming nearer.’ ‘So I am,’ says he, sighing, and moving back to his corner. ‘Good Susan! Keep reminding me, will you?’ ‘I certainly shall,’ says Susan, who has perhaps been only half understood up to this. ‘Well, if not next week—next month?’ ‘Oh no,’ says Susan. ‘In a year perhaps I——’ ‘How dare you make such a proposition! Come now, Susan, you have heard the old adage beginning, “Life is short.”’ ‘Yes, but I don’t believe it. And besides—no; don’t stir. And besides—you are coming nearer.’ ‘It is all your fault if I am. You are behaving so disgracefully. The idea of your mentioning a year. I shall appeal to your father.’ ‘I am certain he won’t hear of it at all. He—oh, there, you are coming closer again.’ ‘Susan,’ says Crosby sternly, ‘enough of this. I’ll stand no more of it. You shan’t keep me at arm’s length any longer.’ ‘I? What had I to do with it?’ says Susan, arching her charming brows. After which it takes only a moment to have the arm in question round her again, and to have her drawn into it—a most willing captive.