"And you know I am tremendously in love with you, Myra, and want to
make you all my own," said Tony, capturing her hands. "I know I can
make you love me, and we will be enormously happy after we are married.
Do be a darling and let me fix a date for our wedding."
"Be a dear, Tony, and don't press me," pleaded Myra. "We are happy
enough as we are, and since we became engaged and Aunt Clarissa ceased
to badger me, I've been having a gorgeous time. Let's postpone fixing
a date for our marriage until next Spring, by which time I may be sure
of my own heart. Perhaps it's an old-fashioned idea, but I'd like to
be in love with the man I marry."
"I say, Myra!" exclaimed Tony, as if struck by a sudden idea, after a
few moments of silence. "I say! A promise is a promise, you know.
You won't throw me over and make me look and feel an ass, will you, if
you should happen to meet someone you think you like better than me?
You've promised to be my wife, you know."
"Yes, I know, Tony, but I also know you are too much of a sportsman to
hold me to my promise if I should happen to fall in love with another
man," Myra responded. "That isn't in the least likely to happen, Tony
dear, and I am truly trying to love you in the way a girl should love
the man she has promised to marry, as I have already told you. Let me
have my freedom and my fling for a few months longer."
"Well, I suppose it isn't any use my trying to bully you into marrying
me at once," said Tony, with a shrug, a sigh, and a wry smile. "But
you know I'm tremendously in love with you, darling, and I can't help
feeling jealous of the fellows who still go on dancing attendance on
you although you are engaged to me. I'm haunted by the fear of someone
stealing you from me."
"Tony, darlint, you've no need to be jealous," Myra smilingly assured
him, and patted his cheek. "There isn't anyone else. Dozens of men
profess to be in love with me, but there isn't a single man--or a
married man either--that I'm the slightest little bit in love with. So
don't worry! I promise you that if ever I do meet a man whom I'd
rather marry than you, I'll tell you."