"Yes, I know"--and she laughed--"but it's not strange, Ross. Any woman
would have chosen you: I have always heard of your successes with women.
And you know it was take or lose when you gave me my chance. I had but one
choice; it was not likely you would drop your handkerchief before me a
second time; so I took you quick, before some other woman caught you."

She kept a light, gay tone thus far, standing the other side of the grate
from him, but when he came near as if to draw her toward him, she said
hurriedly, "These boys have been too much for me, and tried me terribly.
If you will not care, Ross, I think I'll say 'Good-night,' though it's
early. Don't stay in, if you would like to go to your club or anywhere,
because it is our first evening. You see, I am going to desert you first.
It's part of the compact, you know, that I am never to be in your way."

"Oh, Percy," he said, in a very boyishly aggrieved tone, "I don't want to
go anywhere where you are not."

"You will soon get tired of that, Ross. But I'm glad you don't want to go
to-night: I doubt your being quite able to walk much in the evening. Yet I
feel as if I must say 'Good-night' and get myself in the dark. Why? I'm
unstrung. The newness of my life with you, the traveling, this coming home
with you to a place where I am to know either joy or woe, and all this
talk with Harry and Sheldon, have been almost more than I could bear;" and
her lip quivered. "It's all I have been able to do this last hour to keep
from crying, and I do hate to cry before people." The long-suppressed
emotion of all these weeks had broken bounds and she shook with sobs,
while every nerve seemed quivering, and all she said was, "Ross, Ross!
please forgive me! I am so sorry to be so foolish!" And though he strove
by every tender method to comfort and soothe her, it was in vain; and at
length, really frightened, he carried her to the little room she had