Once he was saying: "It is too good to be true. I came unbidden, determined to learn how I stood with you. I could not wait. When I saw you to-day, I said to myself that you had grown away from me. I told myself I should have to win you all over again. You seemed unapproachable. You were so wonderful, Christine--so utterly beyond anything I had expected to find. I was alarmed, I was actually dismayed. But I told myself that I would win you; I would begin all over again and I--" "You saw me to-day?" she interrupted in surprise. "Where?" "I was waiting for you at the station--far back in the crowd. I wanted to see you in that way first. Your mother and I met there. She did not tell you. She asked me to come to-night, but she was careful to give me no hope. You will never know the doubts and fears that have beset me all this long evening. And then you came in. I was dazed. I was all a-tremble. And then to find that--that I had had all my fears for nothing! Why--why, I could have died for joy! You did not hesitate. You swept me off my feet. When you kissed me, Christine, I--I--it was as if night had turned to day in--" "I have gone on loving you, David, from the beginning. There never has been a moment in which I have ceased to do so. Ah, you had nothing to fear. But I! Oh, my dear one, I was never free from doubt--never quite certain. You were so far above me that I--" "Don't say that!" "That I was sure you would not take our--our love dream seriously. When you came to be a man, with all that manhood meant to you, I felt somehow that you would forget the little circus girl who--" He kissed her. Then she was silent for a long time. "Your mother was telegraphing me to-day to come," he said after a time. "Did you know that she intended to do so?" "No. I only knew that she would do it--soon. She had promised--both of us, you know." "Have you never asked her to send me the message?" "Never! How could I? I would not have held you to the compact. Nor would she." "And have you not told her that you cared for me all these years? Didn't she know?" "Listen, David," she said seriously. "My mother has never spoken of our compact. She did nothing to influence me. She was content to let time take its course--and nature, too. Ah, how wise she is! But all this time I have been conscious of a strange feeling that she was making me over anew with but one object in view. She wanted me to be all that you could expect, demand, exact, if you were to come some day to--to look me over, to see if I was--was worth the effort. Yes, David, she prepared me against this day. She worked with me, she planned, she denied herself everything to give me all that you might wish for in a--" "My dear, you had everything to begin with," he began gallantly, but she checked him with a shake of her head.