"
Joy gave a long sigh of relief.
"Then--you're not engaged to Gail?"
He gave the hands he held a little half-impatient, half-loving shake.
"Would I have asked you to marry me under those circumstances?"
"You never asked me to marry you," said Joy in a subdued voice. She
felt as if the world were coming down around her ears. "I was a
trial fiancee, and a good deal of a trial at that, as you said.
And--you only did it to oblige me, and--and I'm very much obliged
and--and hadn't you better go?"
If he stayed much longer----
His voice, that had been light, became more tender and more serious.
"Joy, do you think I could see much of you without caring for you?
When I first met you I took you for a child, and there was so much
of the child about you afterwards that, when I yielded to an impulse
and helped you out of your dilemma I scarcely knew I was in love
with you. But it didn't take me long after that to find it out. And
my only fear was that you were going through it all in the same
childlike spirit, that you couldn't care for me. But when I asked
you if you belonged to me, and you said--do you remember? You always
were human--for me'--why--" his voice became happier again, for she
had not drawn away, "why, I thought I was asking you to marry me.
And I thought you were saying you would. But if you weren't....
_Don't_ you care, Joy? _Aren't_ you mine? It doesn't seem as if
you could be any one else's.
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