Marjorie Dean's Romance

“Hal, I always mean to be kind to you.” Marjorie did better this time. “I wish you wouldn’t feel that you have troubled me. I have read Brooke Hamilton’s love story. I understand more of love than I used. I know that true love is – it is – ”

“What do you know of love?” Hal’s hands suddenly dropped lightly upon her shoulders. The two had stopped before the great pink bush, facing each other, their young features set with the terrific earnestness of youth. “Have you grown up? Do you love me?”

“I – have grown up this much – I – understand the worth of true love, Hal. That is – ”

“Not loving me yet, but very near it,” came the tender interruption. Hal’s hands slipped from Marjorie’s shoulders. “I love you,” he said. “I love you.”

Marjorie regarded him silently. She knew that Hal was fighting against loving her. That in a moment of emotion he had spoken again the words he had tried to forget. He would instantly go back to his role of devoted friend. She did not wish him to go back. She loved him. How greatly she loved him she could not then guess. She knew only that she loved him.

“What is it, Marjorie?” Hal reached for her hands, caught them, held them unresisting in his own.

Came a silence. A faint vagrant night breeze stirred the trees, touched the faces of the two besides the almond bush. Very gently Hal drew his Violet Girl into his arms.

“It must be a whole year from now, Hal,” Marjorie said later with charming practicality. They were walking toward the house now in answer to at least five minutes’ intermittent whistling of Jerry from the veranda.

“Stop a minute.” Hal drew Marjorie into the shadow of a tall shrub.

“I have oceans to do. I told you all about it a little while ago. Work is work. It can’t be done in a minute. But it can be accomplished by next June. Then I’ll be – I’ll be – ”

“Marjorie Dean Macy,” Hal said, and he punctuated these three euphonic words in true lover’s fashion. The story of that eventful year of accomplishment and triumph, which ended in the dawn of a perfect wedding day for Marjorie, will be told in: “MARJORIE DEAN MACY.”