"Answer me," he gloomed, still gazing into-and-through
her.
She half-heard half-didn't-hear him.
Night was falling about them as they sat thus beside the
river. A molten afterglow of iridescent saffron shot with
incandescent carmine lit up the waters of the Hudson till
they glowed like electrified uranium.
For a while they both sat silent,--looming.
"It had to be," she glumped.
"Why, why?" he barked. "Why should it have had to have
been or (more hopefully) even be to be? Surely you don't
mean because of MONEY?"
She shuddered into herself.
The thing seemed to sting her (it hadn't really).
"Money!" she almost-but-not-quite-moaned. "You might
have spared me that!"
He sank down and grassed.
And after they had sat thus for another half-hour grassing
and growling and angling and sensing one another, it
turned out that all that he was trying to say was to ask
if she would marry him.
And of course she said yes.
XIII.--Weejee the Pet Dog. An Idyll of the Summer
We were sitting on the verandah of the Sopley's summer
cottage.
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