too; and _I_ should think you hadn't altered either." He was afraid, as
yet, to be too plain spoken, but his tone made it quite clear that he
asked for no greater happiness than that of seeing her grow old beside
him.

She did not pretend to misunderstand him. "Would you? Perhaps you
would," she said. "But, all the same, I don't think you need insist on
that particular--pose."

He passed that by, too eager at the moment to claim the concession she
had offered him. "Is there any hope that I may be allowed to--to watch
you growing old?" he asked.

"Perhaps--if you'll let me do it in my own way," Rachel said.

Adrian shyly took her hand. "You mean that you will--that you don't
mind?" He put the question as if he had no doubt of its
intelligibility--to her.

She nodded.

"When did you begin to know?" he asked, awed by the wonder of this
stupendous thing that had happened to him.

"From the beginning, I think," Rachel murmured.

"So did I, from the very beginning--" he agreed, and from that they
dropped into sacred reminiscences and comparisons concerning the
innumerable things they had adoringly seen in each other and had had as
yet no opportunity to glory in.