"I can be glad of one thing, though it's selfish.

I can be glad you came straight to me.

It's more to me than even if you'd come because you were happy." She did not speak again for a little while; then she said: "Bibbs--dear--could you tell me about it?
Do you want to ?" Still he did not look up, but in a voice, shaken and husky he asked her a question so grotesque that at first she thought she had misunderstood his words.
"Mary," he said, "could you marry me ?" "What did you say, Bibbs ?" she asked, quietly.
His tone and attitude did not change.

"Will you marry me ?" Both of her hands leaped to her cheeks--she grew red and then white.
She rose slowly and moved backward from him, staring at him, at first incredulously, then with an intense perplexity more and more luminous in her wide eyes; it was like a spoken question.

The room filled with strangeness in the long silence--the two were so strange to each other.
At last she said: "What made you say that ?" He did not answer.
"Bibbs, look at me!" Her voice was loud and clear.