She did not answer, because she did not quite know what he was talking about. Yet, her blood was running faster. There was a new light in his eyes--a new quality in his voice that thrilled her. She had never heard a man talk like this before. "You'll have to trust me to prove all those things," he was running on. "You'll have to trust me, because I've learned a lot this summer. I've learned a lot about you that you don't know yourself yet. So what I want you to do is just to take my hand and follow. Can you do that?" At that moment it seemed that she could. On the voyage home she had sat much on the deck alone and looked at the stars, and there had been many moments when she felt exactly as she felt now. Thinking of him and looking at the stars, nothing else had seemed to matter but just the two of them. There had been a child on board who had taken a great fancy to her--a child about the age of one that was now running about the grass under the watchful eyes of a nurse. His name was Peter, and she and Peter used to play tag together. One afternoon when he was very tired he had crept into her arms, and she had carried him to her steamer-chair and wrapped him in her steamer-rug and held him while he slept. Then she had felt exactly as when she looked at the stars. All the things that ordinarily counted with her did not at that moment count at all. She had kissed the little head lying on her bosom and had thought of Don--her heart pounding as it pounded now. "Oh, Don," she exclaimed, "it's only people in stories who do that way!" "It's the way we can do--if you will." "There's Dad," she reminded him. "He let you become engaged, didn't he?" "Yes; but--you don't know him as well as I." "I'll put it up to him to-day, if you'll let me. Honest, I don't think it's as much his affair as ours, but I'll give him a chance. Shall I?" She reached for his hand and pressed it. "I'll give him a chance, but I can't wait. We haven't time to bother with a wedding--do you mind that?" "No, Don." "Then, if he doesn't object--it's to-morrow or next day?" "You--you take away my breath," she answered. "And if he does object?" "Don't let's think of that--now," she said. "Let's walk a little--in the park. It's wonderful out here, Don." Yes, it was wonderful out there--how wonderful he knew better than she. She had not had his advantages. She had not had Sally Winthrop to point out the wonders and make a man feel them. Of course, it was not the place itself--not the little paths, the trees, or even the big, bright sky that Frances meant or he meant. It was the sense of individuality one got here: the feeling of something within bigger than anything without. It was this that permitted Sally Winthrop to walk here with her head as high as if she were a princess. It was this that made him, by her side, feel almost like a prince. And now Frances was beginning to sense it. Don felt his heart quicken.