Lydia laid her hand eagerly on his arm. "But don't let's, Paul! Please, _please_ don't let us! Just because everybody else does is no reason why we _have_ to. You're always saying folks can make things go their way if they try hard enough--you're so clever and--" "Oh, I'm a wonder, I know! You needn't tell me how smart I am." "But, Paul, I'm in earnest--I mean it--" The car had arrived by this time and he swung her up to the platform. Like other moderns they were so accustomed to spend a large part of their time in being transported from place to place that they were quite at home in the noisy public conveyance, and after a pause to pay fares, remove wraps, and nod to an acquaintance or two, they went on with their conversation as though they were alone. People looked approvingly at the comely, well-dressed young couple, so naively absorbed in each other, and speculated as to whether they were just married or just about to be. After they were deposited at the corner nearest the Emery house, the change to the silent street, up which they walked slowly, reluctant to separate, took them back to their first mood of this loveliest of all their hours together--the sweet intimacy of their first meeting in the new house. Lydia felt herself so wholly in sympathy with Paul that she was moved to touch upon something that had never been mentioned between them. "Paul, dear," she said, her certainty that he would understand, surrounding her with an atmosphere of spiritual harmony which she recognized was the thing in all the world which mattered most to her, "Paul dear, I never told you--there's nothing to tell, really--but when I went to the Mallory's house-party in February I rode from here to Hardville with Mr. Rankin and had a long talk with him. You don't mind, do you?" Her lover drew her hand within his arm and gave it an affectionate pressure. "You may not know things, Lydia, as you say, but you are the _nicest_ girl! the straightest! I knew that at the time--Miss Burgess told me. But I'm glad you've given me a chance to say how sorry I was for you last autumn when everybody was pestering you so about him. I knew how you felt--better than you did, I'll bet I did! I wasn't a bit afraid. I knew you could never care for anybody but me. Why, you're _mine_, Lydia, I'm yours, and that's all there is to it. You know it as well as I do." "_I know it when I'm with you_," she told him with a bravely honest, unspoken reservation. He laughed his appreciation of her insistent sincerity. "Well, when you're married won't you be with me all the time? So that's fixed! And as for meeting somebody by accident on the street-cars--why, you foolish darling, you're not marrying a Turk, or an octopus--but an American."