"I am so glad our people are beginning to appreciate our beautiful river," she said, and her voice had a peculiar note of haste and fear in it. "I’m so glad. People travel to other lands and rave over scenery, when they have this right at home." She waved her hand in a little gesture to include the river and its dark shores. She realized that she was speaking unnaturally, as she always did with him. The realization irritated her. "The Country Club is just above us, isn’t it?" she hurriedly continued, consciously struggling to appear unconscious. "Have you--" He interrupted her. "I’ve been thinking of you a good deal lately," he said. His voice had mastery in it. "A good deal," he repeated, "for more than a year now. But I’ve waited until I had something to offer you, some achievement, however small, and now--I begin to feel that I need help and--sympathy in the work that is laid on me. Elizabeth--" "Don’t," she said, "please don’t." She had turned from him now and taken a step backward. "Just a minute, Elizabeth," he insisted. "I have waited to tell you--that I love you, to ask you to be my wife. I have loved you a long, long time. Don’t deny me now--don’t decide until you can think--I can wait. Will you think it over? Will you consider it--carefully--will you?" He tried to look into her face, which she had turned away. Her hands were clasped before her, her fingers interlocked tightly. He heard her sigh. Then with an effort she looked up at him. "No," she began, "I can not; I--" He stopped her. "Don’t say no," he said. "You have not considered, I am sure. Won’t you at least think before deciding definitely?" She had found more than the usual difficulty there is in saying no to anything, or to any one; now she had strength only to shake her head. "You must not decide hastily," he insisted. "We must go in." She turned back toward the house. "I can wait to know," Eades assured her. They retraced their steps silently. As they went up the walk she said: "Of course, I am not insensible of the honor, Mr. Eades." The phrase instantly seemed inadequate, even silly, to her. Why was it she never could be at ease with him? "Don’t decide, I beg," he said, "until you have considered the matter carefully. Promise me." "You must leave me now," she said. He bowed and stood looking after her as she went up the steps and ran across the veranda in her eagerness to lose herself in the throng within the house. And Eades remained outside, walking under the trees. Half an hour later Elizabeth stood with Marriott in the drawing-room. Her face was pale; the joy, the spirit that had been in it earlier in the evening had gone from it. "Ah," said Marriott suddenly, "there goes John Eades. I hadn’t seen him before." Elizabeth glanced hurriedly at Eades and then curiously at Marriott. His face wore the peculiar smile she had seen so often. Now it seemed remote, to belong to other days, days that she had lost.