And what would happen in all these fifty golden years? "You know, long
before that time, perhaps it won't be--just us?" he said.

The color leaped to her face; she nodded, finding no words in which to
expand that joyous "perhaps," which touched the quick in her. Instantly
that sum in addition which he had not essayed in his own mind, became
unimportant in hers. What difference did the twenty severing years make,
after all? Her heart rose with a bound--she had a quick vision of a
little head against her bosom! But she could not put it into words. She
only challenged, him:

"I am not clever like you. Do you think you can love a stupid person for
fifty years?"

"For a thousand years!--but you're not stupid."

She looked doubtful; then went on confessing: "Auntie says I'm a dummy,
because I don't talk very much. And I'm awfully timid. And she says I'm
jealous."

"You don't talk because you're always thinking; that's one of the most
fascinating things about you, Eleanor,--you keep me wondering what on
earth you're thinking about. It's the mystery of you that gets me! And
if you're 'timid'--well, so long as you're not afraid of me, the more
scared you are, the better I like it. A man," said Maurice, "likes to
feel that he protects his--his wife." He paused and repeated the glowing
word ... "his wife!" For a moment he could not go on with their careless
talk; then he was practical again. That word "protect" was too robust
for sentimentality. "As for being jealous, that, about me, is a joke!
And if you were, it would only mean that you loved me--so I would be