“It’s the things that are going to happen will make our good luck,” he said.  “You’ll find men are seldom satisfied with the past, whatever women may be.  God knows I’m not.”

“You were always one of my two heroes when I was a child; and father was the other.  He is still my hero—­and so are you, Ray.”

“A pretty poor hero.  I wouldn’t pretend that to my dog.  I only claim to have something worth while in me that you might bring out—­raw material for you to turn into the finished article.”

She laughed to hear this.

“Come—­come—­you’re not as modest as all that.  You’re much too clever even to pretend any such thing.  Women don’t turn strong men into finished articles.  At best, perhaps, they can only decorate a little of the outside.”

“You laugh,” he answered, “but you know better.  If you love me, be ambitious for me.  That’s the most helpful love a woman can give a man—­to see his capabilities better than he can, and fire him on the best and biggest he can do, and help him to grasp his opportunities.”

“So it is.”

“You’ve got to decide whether it’s worth while marrying me, Chicky.  You do love me, as I love you—­because you can’t help it.  But you can help marrying me.  You’ve got to think of your own show as well as mine.  I quite understand that.  You must be yourself and make your own mark, and take advantage of all the big new chances offered to the rising generation of women.  I love you a great deal too much to want to lessen you, or drift you into a back-water.  It’s just a question whether my work, and the Mill, and so on, give you the chance you want—­if, working together, we can each help on the other.  You could certainly help me hugely and you know it; but whether I could help you—­that’s what you’ve got to think about I suppose.”

“Yes, I suppose it is, Ray.”

“Your eyes say ‘yes’ already, and they’re terrible true eyes.”

But she only lowered them and neither spoke any more for a little while.  The worst of the storm had passed, and its riot and splash gave place to a fine drizzle as the night began to close in.

They started for home and, both content to think their own thoughts, trudged side by side.  For Raymond’s part, he knew the woman too well to suffer any doubt of the issue and he was happy.  For he felt that she was quietly happy too, and if instincts had brought grave doubts, or prompted her to deny him, she would not have been happy.

Estelle did not miss the romance from his offer of marriage.  She had dreamed of man’s love in her poetry-reading days, but under the new phase and the practical bent, developed by a general enthusiasm for her kind, personal emotions were not paramount.  There could be but little sex in her affection for Raymond:  she had lived too near him for that.  Indeed, she had grown up beside him, and the days before he came to dwell at North Hill seemed vague and misty.