you know I've never told you yet that I love you? You knew it, though,
didn't you, from the first, the very first? Tell me from when?"

"George, this is awfully foolish, isn't it?"

"Never mind. It's jolly nice. It's necessary, too. I've read about it.
It's always done. Tell me from when you knew I loved you."

"After last Saturday."

"Oh, Mary! Much earlier than _that_! You must have!"

"Well, I thought perhaps you--you cared after that first day when you
came here."

"Not before that?"

She laughed. "Come, how _could_ I? Why, I'd hardly seen you."

"Well, I did, anyway," George told her. "I loved you from the very
minute you shot out of the cab that day. There! But even this isn't
the proper thing. I've been promising myself all night to say four
words to you--just four. Now I'm going to say them: Mary, I love you."

She looked in his eyes for a moment, answering the signal that shone
thence; and then she laughed that clear pipe of mirth which was so
uniquely her own possession.

"Oh, I say, you mustn't do that," George cried. He was really
perturbed.