"Do you think," he asked, "that I look upon you as a promising investment?"
"Well, I am," Marcia replied. "You admit having made money out of me this spring."
"At any rate, I am willing to divide it," he suggested.
"No one in the world gives something for nothing," he reminded her.
"We seem to be mixing up business and the other things most shockingly," Marcia declared. "Do you really mean that you are willing to share the profits of my next novel with me?"
"I couldn't do that," he objected, "it would be too unbusinesslike. I am quite willing, however, to share my life and all I have with you."
"Mere rhetoric!" Marcia exclaimed uneasily.
"Solemn earnest," he insisted. "Will you marry me, Marcia?"
She looked across at him. Her eyebrows were a little raised, her eyes inclined to be misty, her mouth tremulous.
"James," she replied, "I believe I'd like to. I'm not quite sure--I believe I would. But just tell me--how can I?"
"He has kept you to himself for pretty well twenty years," Borden said gruffly.
"When I was a child of seventeen," she confided, "a young farmer down at Mandeleys kissed me. If I had been one year younger," she went on, "I should have spat at him. As it was, I never spoke to him again. Then, a few months after that, the schoolmaster at the school where I was teaching made an awkward attempt at the same thing. He missed me, but his lips just touched my cheek. Then Reginald came. Let me see, that was nineteen years ago, and since then no one else has kissed me."
"A record of fidelity," Borden observed, "at which, even in your own stories, you would scoff."
"But then, you see," she reminded him, "I never write about a person with queer ideas like mine, because they wouldn't be interesting. People like a little more resilience about their heroines."
"Couldn't we talk brutal common sense for once?" he asked impatiently. "I have never abused your Marquis. From your own showing, he has played the game, as you have. All I want to say is that the natural time has come for your separation. I have waited for you a good many years, and I am a domestic man. I want a home--and children. It's quite time you wanted the same."
Perhaps for a moment the light in her eyes was a shade softer. She moved uneasily in her place.