“It would be wonderful, of course,” she said, after a minute, but her tone showed she was not considering it as a possibility.

Wayne’s heart sank; he saw that he had thought it possible that he would not allow her to go, but that he had never seriously faced the chance of her refusing.

“Mathilde,” he said, “it’s far and sudden, and we shall be poor, and I can’t promise that I shall succeed more than other fellows; and yet against all that—­”

She looked at him.

“You don’t think I care for those things?  I don’t care if you succeed or fail, or live all your life in Siam.”

“What is it, then?”

“Pete, it’s my mother.  She would never consent.”

Wayne was aware of this, but, then, as he pointed out to Mathilde with great care, Mrs. Farron could not bear for her daughter the pain of separation.

“Separation!” cried the girl, “But you just said you would not go if I did not.”

“If you put your mother before me, mayn’t I put my profession before you?”

“My dear, don’t speak in that tone.”

“Why, Mathilde,” he said, and he sprang up and stood looking down at her from a little distance, “this is the real test.  We have thought we loved each other—­”

“Thought!” she interrupted.

“But to get engaged with no immediate prospect of marriage, with all our families and friends grouped about, that doesn’t mean such a lot, does it?”

“It does to me,” she answered almost proudly.

“Now, one of us has to sacrifice something.  I want to go on this expedition.  I want to succeed.  That may be egotism or legitimate ambition.  I don’t know, but I want to go.  I think I mean to go.  Ought I to give it up because you are afraid of your mother?”

“It’s love, not fear, Pete.”

“You love me, too, you say.”

“I feel an obligation to her.”

“And, good Heavens! do you feel none to me?”

“No, no.  I love you too much to feel an obligation to you.”

“But you love your mother and feel an obligation to her.  Why, Mathilde, that feeling of obligation is love—­love in its most serious form.  That’s what you don’t feel for me.  That’s why you won’t go.”

“I haven’t said I wouldn’t go.”

“You never even thought of going.”

“I have, I do.  But how can I help hesitating?  You must know I want to go.”

“I see very little sign of it,” he murmured.  The interview had not gone as he intended.  He had not meant, he never imagined, that he would attempt to urge and coerce her; but her very detachment seemed to set a fire burning within him.

“I think,” he said with an effort to sound friendly, “that I had better go and let you think this over by yourself.”

He was actually moving to the door when she sprang up and put her arms about him.

“Weren’t you even going to kiss me, Pete?”