‘I hardy thought anything about it.’

’But it would ease your mind if I said that I would far rather live in a cottage, as quietly and simply as possible?’

’What does ease my mind —­ or rather, what makes me very happy, is that you don’t refuse to think of giving me your companionship.’

Alma flushed a little.

’I haven’t promised.  After all my thinking about it, it came to this —­ that I couldn’t make up my mind till I had talked over everything with you.  If I marry, I must know what my life is going to be.  And it puzzles me that you could dream of making anyone your wife before you had asked her all sorts of questions.’

In his great contentment, Harvey laughed.

’Admirable, theoretically!  But how is a man to begin asking questions?  How many would he ask before he got sent about his business?’

‘That’s the very way of putting his chance to the test!’ said Alma brightly.  ’If he is sent about his business, how much better for him than to marry on a misunderstanding.’

’I agree with you perfectly.  I never heard anyone talk better sense on the subject.’

Alma looked pleased, as she always did when receiving a compliment.

’Will you believe, then, Mr. Rolfe, that I am quite in earnest in hating show and pretences and extravagance, and wishing to live in just the opposite way?’

’I will believe it if you cease to address me by that formal name —­ a show and a pretence, and just a little extravagant.’

Her cheeks grew warm again

‘That reminds me,’ she said; ’I didn’t know you had a second name —­ till I got that letter.’

’I had almost forgotten it myself, till I answered a certain other letter.  I didn’t know till then that you had a second name.  Your “Florence” called out my “Radcliffe” —­ which sounds fiery, doesn’t it?  I always felt that the name over-weighted me.  I got it from my mother.’

‘And your first —­ Harvey?’

’My first I got from a fine old doctor, about whom I’ll tell you some day —­ Alma.’

‘I named your name.  I didn’t address you by it.’

‘But you will?’

’Let us talk seriously. —­ Could you live far away from London, in some place that people know nothing about?’

’With you, indeed I could, and be glad enough if I never saw London again.’

An exaltation possessed Alma; her eyes grew very bright, gazing as if at a mental picture, and her hands trembled as she continued to speak.’

’I don’t mean that we are to go and be hermits in a wilderness.  Our friends must visit us —­ our real friends, no one else; just the people we really care about, and those won’t be many.  If I give up a public career —­ as of course I shall —­ there’s no need to give up music.  I can go on with it in a better spirit, for pure love of it, without any wish for making money and reputation.  You don’t think this a mere dream?’