One other question Alan ventured gently to raise,—­the question of children.  Fools always put that question, and think it a crushing one.  Alan was no fool, yet it puzzled him strangely.  He did not see for himself how easy is the solution; how absolutely Herminia’s plan leaves the position unaltered.  But Herminia herself was as modestly frank on the subject as on every other.  It was a moral and social point of the deepest importance; and it would be wrong of them to rush into it without due consideration.  She had duly considered it.  She would give her children, should any come, the unique and glorious birthright of being the only human beings ever born into this world as the deliberate result of a free union, contracted on philosophical and ethical principles.  Alan hinted certain doubts as to their up-bringing and education.  There, too, Herminia was perfectly frank.  They would be half hers, half his; the pleasant burden of their support, the joy of their education, would naturally fall upon both parents equally.  But why discuss these matters like the squalid rich, who make their marriages a question of settlements and dowries and business arrangements?  They two were friends and lovers; in love, such base doubts could never arise.  Not for worlds would she import into their mutual relations any sordid stain of money, any vile tinge of bargaining.  They could trust one another; that alone sufficed for them.

So Alan gave way bit by bit all along the line, overborne by Herminia’s more perfect and logical conception of her own principles.  She knew exactly what she felt and wanted; while he knew only in a vague and formless way that his reason agreed with her.

A week later, he knocked timidly one evening at the door of a modest little workman-looking cottage, down a small side street in the back-wastes of Chelsea.  ’Twas a most unpretending street; Bower Lane by name, full of brown brick houses, all as like as peas, and with nothing of any sort to redeem their plain fronts from the common blight of the London jerry-builder.  Only a soft serge curtain and a pot of mignonette on the ledge of the window, distinguished the cottage at which Alan Merrick knocked from the others beside it.  Externally that is to say; for within it was as dainty as Morris wall-papers and merino hangings and a delicate feminine taste in form and color could make it.  Keats and Shelley lined the shelves; Rossetti’s wan maidens gazed unearthly from the over-mantel.  The door was opened for him by Herminia in person; for she kept no servant,—­that was one of her principles.  She was dressed from head to foot in a simple white gown, as pure and sweet as the soul it covered.  A white rose nestled in her glossy hair; three sprays of white lily decked a vase on the mantel-piece.  Some dim survival of ancestral ideas made Herminia Barton so array herself in the white garb of affiance for her bridal evening.  Her cheek was aglow with virginal shrinking as she opened the door, and welcomed Alan in.  But she held out her hand just as frankly as ever to the man of her free choice as he advanced to greet her.  Alan caught her in his arms and kissed her forehead tenderly.  And thus was Herminia Barton’s espousal consummated.