“I believe you are going to cry, darling.  Don’t be so serious,” he said, laughing.

“But you know—­tell me you know that I love you.”

“Of course I know it.  Am I blind or a fool?”

Then before the glowing worship in her face, he caught her in his arms, while he said over and over, “I love you!  I love you!”

He held her close, thrilling at her touch, seeking her warm lips with an eagerness which comforted her because she was too inexperienced to understand how ephemeral was its nature and its sweetness.

“Promise to love me always, George, as you do now,” she said, passionately trying to make the fugitive joy immortal.

“If you’ll tell me how to help it, I shall be grateful,” he retorted as gaily as if her eyes had not filled with tears.

“Swear it!”

“I swear it.  Now, are you satisfied?”

“I don’t believe it.  I’ll never believe that you love me as much as I love you.  Nobody could.”

In his heart he agreed with her.  That Gabriella loved him more than he loved her was a fact to which he was easily reconciled.  He loved her quite as much as he could love anybody except himself and be comfortable, and if she demanded more, she merely proved herself to be an unreasonable person.  Women did love more than men, he supposed, but what else were they here for?  During the six months when he had thought that she belonged to another, she had, he told himself, almost driven him out of his mind; but possession once assured, he had speedily recovered his health and his sanity.  Her worship flattered him, and in this flattery she had, perhaps, her strongest hold on his heart.  Nothing in his engagement had pleased him more than the readiness with which she had given up her work at his request.  He abhorred independence in a wife; and Gabriella’s immediate and unresisting acquiescence in his desire appeared to him to establish the fact of her essential and inherent femininity.  Had not all laws, as well as all religions, proclaimed that woman should be content to lay down not only her life but her very identity for love; and that Gabriella was womanly to the core of her nature, in spite of her work in Brandywine’s millinery department, it was impossible to doubt while he kissed her.  There were times, indeed, when the exaltation of Gabriella’s womanliness seemed to have left her without a will of her own; when, in a divine submission to love, she appeared to exist only for the laudable purpose of making her lover happy.

“I’d do anything on earth for you, Gabriella,” said George suddenly.  “I wonder if you would make a sacrifice for me if I asked it?” From his face as he looked down on her it was evident that he was not speaking from impulse, but that he had seized an opportune moment.

“You know I would, George.  I’d give up the whole world for you.  I’d beg my bread with you by the roadside.”