cious! Don't you know that you're the most impressive sort? We chatterers spend all our time playing to you quiet people."
"Yes; we're only the audience."
"'Only!'" she echoed. "Why, we live for you, and we can't live without you."
"I wish you couldn't," said Russell. "That would be a new experience for both of us, wouldn't it?"
"It might be a rather bleak one for me," she answered, lightly. "I'm afraid I'll miss these summer evenings with you when they're over. I'll miss them enough, thanks!"
"Do they have to be over some time?" he asked.
"Oh, everything's over some time, isn't it?"
Russell laughed at her. "Don't let's look so far ahead as that," he said. "We don't need to be already thinking of the cemetery, do we?"
"I didn't," she said, shaking her head. "Our summer evenings will be over before then, Mr. Russell."
"Why?" he asked.
"Good heavens!" she said. "There's laconic eloquence: almost a proposal in a single word! Never mind, I shan't hold you to it. But to answer you:
