"I do, too," murmured Rose, turning her face away. The deep colour
mounted to the roots of her hair and he studied her impersonally, as he
would have studied any other lovely thing.

"Why?" he began, then laughed.

"Why what?" asked Rose, quickly.

"I was about to ask you a very foolish question."

"Don't hesitate," she said. "Most questions are foolish."

"This is worse--it's idiotic. I was going to ask you why you hadn't
married."

With a sharp stab at the heart, Rose noted the past tense. "Why haven't
you?" she queried, forcing a smile.

"There is only one answer to that question, and yet people keep on
asking it. They might as well ask why you don't buy an automobile."

"Well?" continued Rose, inquiringly.

"Because 'the not impossible she,' or 'he,' hasn't come, that's all."

"Perhaps only one knows," she suggested.

"No," replied Allison, "in any true mating, they both know--they must."

There was a long pause. A smouldering log, in the fireplace, broke and