"I'm going to be--awfully frank with you," she said rather
tremulously. You--won't mind?''
He sat motionless for a second. Then very quietly he dropped his
pipe back into his pocket and grasped her slender wrists. "Go on!"
he said.
Her face was lifted, very earnest and appealing, to his. "You
know," she said, "we are not strangers. We haven't been from the
very beginning. We started comrades, didn't we?"
"We should have been married by this time, if I hadn't put the
brake on," said Burke.
"Yes," Sylvia said. "I know. That is what makes me feel
so--intimate with you. But it is different for you. I am a total
stranger to you. You have never met me--or anyone like me--before.
Have you?"
"And I have never asked anyone to marry me before," said Burke.
The wrists he held grew suddenly rigid. "You have asked me out
of--out of pity--and the goodness of your heart?" she whispered.
"Quite wrong," said Burke. "I want a capable woman to take care of
me--when Mary Ann goes on the bust."
"Please don't make me laugh!" begged Sylvia rather shakily. "I
haven't done yet. I'm going to ask you an awful thing next.
You'll tell me the truth, won't you?"
"I'll tell you before you ask," he said. "I can be several kinds
of beast, but not the kind you are afraid of. I am not a faddist,
but I am moral.
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