He envied people who could make up their minds by thinking.  At least sometimes he envied them and sometimes he thought they lied.  He could only think about a subject and wait for the unknown gods to bring him a decision.  And this is what he now did, with his eyes fixed on the towers and tanks and tenements, on the pale winter sky, and, when he got up and leaned his elbows on the parapet, on the crowds that looked like a flood of purple insects in the streets.

He thought of Mathilde’s youth and his own untried capacities for success, of poverty and children, of the probable opposition of Mathilde’s family and of a strange, sinister, disintegrating power he felt or suspected in Mrs. Farron.  He felt that it was a terrible risk to ask a young girl to take and that it was almost an insult to be afraid to ask her to take it.  That was what his mother had always said about these cherished, protected creatures:  they were not prepared to meet any strain in life.  He knew he would not have hesitated to ask a girl differently brought up.  Ought he to ask Mathilde or ought he not even to hesitate about asking her?  In his own future he had confidence.  He had an unusual power of getting his facts together so that they meant something.  In a small way his work was recognized.  A report of his had some weight.  He felt certain that if on his return he wanted another position he could get it unless he made a terrible fiasco in China.  Should he consult any one?  He knew beforehand what they would all think about it.  Mr. Lanley would think that it was sheer impertinence to want to marry his granddaughter on less than fifteen thousand dollars a year; Mrs. Farron would think that there were lots of equally agreeable young men in the world who would not take a girl to China; and his mother, whom he could not help considering the wisest of the three, would think that Mathilde lacked discipline and strength of will for such an adventure.  And on this he found he made up his mind.  “After all,” he said to himself as he put the chair back against the wall, “everything else would be failure, and this may be success.”

It was the afternoon that Farron was brought back from the hospital, and he and Mathilde were sure of having the drawing-room to themselves.  He told her the situation slowly and with a great deal of detail, chronologically, introducing the Chinese trip at the very end.  But she did not at once understand.

“O Pete, you would not go away from me!” she said.  “I could not face that.”

“Couldn’t you?  Remember that everything you say is going to be used against you.”

“Would you be willing to go, Pete?”

“Only if you will go with me.”

“Oh!” she clasped her hands to her breast, shrinking back to look at him.  So that was what he had meant, this stranger whom she had known for such a short time.  As she looked she half expected that he would smile, and say it was all a joke; but his eyes were steadily and seriously fixed on hers.  It was very queer, she thought.  Their meeting, their first kiss, their engagement, had all seemed so inevitable, so natural, there had not been a hint of doubt or decision about it; but now all of a sudden she found herself faced by a situation in which it was impossible to say yes or no.