The firm, puckered, rather thick lips of Dr. Shonto made a corrugated horizontal line as he drank in the beauty of the picture the drooping girl unconsciously posed for him. He thought of his own pale-blue eyes, his sparse sandy eyebrows, his thin, neutral-coloured hair, his pitted, Gargantuan nose. But he straightened. He had the body of a gladiator, the heart of a knight, the soul of a poet, and his intellect had brought both fame and wealth to his feet. The doctor knew all this; he knew himself, his possibilities and his limitations. He wanted this girl--he deserved her--he had given up his important work to go with her on this impulsively planned expedition and shield her and win her. She was a combination of all that he desired in a wife. To let Andy Jerome take her away from him would be an injustice to all concerned. His brains and his character and his manhood had made an appeal to her, he felt. Were these attributes enough for her? Was not he possessed of attributes of sufficient worthiness to offer in exchange for her beauty and womanly charm? And some women, he knew, were strangely attracted by an ugly man who offers them virility and a masterful personality. And nearly all such women, he had noted in his vast experience of life, were lovely women and intensely feminine. “Charmian,” he said suddenly, in a voice just loud enough to be heard above the boisterous laughter of the creek, “I’ve been thinking, since the night Andy and I first saw you at El Trono de Tolerancia, that maybe you’re the woman I have been waiting for and longing for ever since I became a man. I came upon this trip with you to find out if my intuition had told me right. It has. The last week of you has shown me that you and I will not be doing our full duty to life unless we are together.” Her supple body tensed a trifle, then relaxed again. Her long lashes had lifted until he saw the silken sheen of her dark eyes, but now they were dropped once more. “I’ll admit that I have gone about this thing with practicality,” he continued. “It is, perhaps, my scientific nature that caused me to. It’s better that way. It’s safest. Boys don’t make love as I am making it, but I’m no boy, though I’m none the less sincere. I look upon successful marriage as the ideal partnership. And you will realize when you are a little older, as I do, that companionship is the most important feature of married life. Don’t think that I don’t love you. I do--deeply. But I’m not offering you the blind, fiery, uncontrolled passion of a youth in his twenties. I’m offering you the sincere love of a mature, reasoning man. What do you think of it?”