without due consideration on such a subject? Would you have me
like the blind girls who go unknowing to the altar, as sheep go to
the shambles? Could you suspect me of such carelessness?--such
culpable thoughtlessness?--you, to whom I have spoken of all this
so freely?"

Alan stared at her, disconcerted, hardly knowing how to answer.
"But what alternative do you propose, then?" he asked in his
amazement.

"Propose?" Herminia repeated, taken aback in her turn. It all
seemed to her so plain, and transparent, and natural. "Why, simply
that we should be friends, like any others, very dear, dear
friends, with the only kind of friendship that nature makes
possible between men and women."

She said it so softly, with some womanly gentleness, yet with such
lofty candor, that Alan couldn't help admiring her more than ever
before for her translucent simplicity, and directness of purpose.
Yet her suggestion frightened him. It was so much more novel to
him than to her. Herminia had reasoned it all out with herself, as
she truly said, for years, and knew exactly how she felt and
thought about it. To Alan, on the contrary, it came with the shock
of a sudden surprise, and he could hardly tell on the spur of the
moment how to deal with it. He paused and reflected. "But do you
mean to say, Herminia," he asked, still holding that soft brown
hand unresisted in his, "you've made up your mind never to marry
any one? made up your mind to brave the whole mad world, that can't
possibly understand the motives of your conduct, and live with some
friend, as you put it, unmarried?"