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Garnet. “Sometimes it does seem like that.”
    “Why don’t you ask about the Jewel Box?” he suggested with a grin. “Just to hear what your proper friends would say?”
    Garnet glanced down, smothering a little laugh. “I did.”
    “What happened?”
    “You won’t tell on me?”
    “Certainly not.”
    She looked up. “Well, there was a young gentleman named Henry Trellen. He and I were walking up Broadway one day, and as we were about to pass the Jewel Box I thought I’d speak of it, very innocently, you know, as if I’d never thought about it before. So I glanced up at the sign, and remarked that I’d never been there.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He said—” Garnet became very pompous as she quoted—“He said, ‘I am sure, Miss Cameron, that the type of entertainment presented at the Jewel Box would neither amuse nor instruct you.’”
    “Oh my dear grandmother,” said Oliver. “Did you slap his silly face?”
    “I felt like it. I really did. But I can’t do things like that. So I just dropped my eyes and said, ‘Pray forgive me, Mr. Trellen. I had not been told that the Jewel Box was an improper resort.’ And he said, very sweetly, ‘I am sure you had not. I cannot imagine any deliberate suggestion of indelicacy coming from you, Miss Cameron.’”
    Oliver laughed, half in derision and half in sympathy. Garnet did not add that soon after this conversation she had received a very formal letter from Henry Trellen, laying his heart, hand, and fortune at her feet. A lady never mentioned her proposals, but she said to Oliver,
    “That’s the sort of gentlemen I’m used to. Now maybe you know why I was so glad when I met you.”
    “Do you want me to take you to the Jewel Box?” Oliver offered.
    “They wouldn’t let you.”
    “We could say we were going to a concert.”
    “I wouldn’t do that. No, it’s not important.” She tried to explain. “I mean, the Jewel Box itself isn’t important. It’s just that every time I pass the Jewel Box I’m reminded of all the things I can’t do. The things people keep away from young ladies. They might not even be interesting things. Maybe if I went to the Jewel Box I wouldn’t like it, and wouldn’t want to go there again. But I want to know, so I can make up my own mind—do you understand? I mean, if they would just say to me, You can go to the Jewel Box any time you want to—I’d feel—well, I’d feel unwrapped from that pink tissue paper and taken out of the closet.”
    Oliver was laughing softly. But he was not making fun of her.
    Garnet had never talked to anybody so frankly before. She felt as though a knot inside her had been untied. Suddenly she realized that Oliver had been holding her hands all this time. But it seemed all right for him to do so. She did not try to take her hands away.
    There was a silence. Their eyes met. Oliver was not laughing any more. His eyes were no longer mischievous, but earnest, and his big hands were holding hers so hard that he hurt her. He said, very softly,
    “Why don’t you come with me, Garnet?”
    Garnet felt a quiver run through her, like a tingle of fire. Oliver said,
    “You dear girl, come with me.”
    Garnet’s lips parted. The tingle had come up into her throat, and she could hardly push her voice past it. She gasped,
    “Oliver—are you—”
    “Yes,” said Oliver, “I’m asking you to marry me. I’ve never wanted to marry anybody before. I never thought I’d want to. But I want you.”
    All the brightness in the world exploded in front of her. Through the brightness she saw Oliver, with his big shoulders and his sunburnt forehead and his rumpled curls, and beyond him the trail into the far golden promises. She said, still almost unbelieving,
    “You want to marry me? You want to take me to California?”
    “Would you go to California with me? Do you mean you would?”
    “Would I go to—” Garnet could not say any more. Her breaths were all confused. Oliver went on, talking