Chapter XXXII: Section 2: He wanted to talk about his book, but Corydon wanted to talk

about him. She had waited so long, and suffered so much--and now at last he was here! “Oh, Thyrsis!” she cried. “There’s just no use in my trying--I can’t do anything at all without you!”

“You won’t have to do it any more,” he said. “We shall not part again.”

“And you are sure you want me? You have no more doubts?”

“How could I have any doubts--after that letter. Ah, that was a brave letter, Corydon! It made me think of you as some old Viking’s daughter! That is the way to go at the task!”

“And then I may feel certain!” she said.

“You may stop thinking all about it,” he replied. “We’ll waste no more of our time--we’ll put it aside and get to work.”

They spent the day wandering about in the park and talking over their plans. “I suppose it’ll be all right now that I’m with you,” said Thyrsis. “I mean, there’s no great hurry about getting married.”

“Oh, no!” she answered. “We dare not think of that, until you have money.”

“How I wish we didn’t have to get married!” he exclaimed.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because-why should we have to get anybody else’s permission to live our lives? I’ve thought about it a good deal, and it’s a slave-custom, and it makes me ashamed of myself.”

“But don’t you believe in marriage, dear?”

“I do, and I don’t. I believe that a man who exposes a woman to the possibility of having a child, ought to guarantee to support the woman for a time, and to support the child. That’s obvious enough--no one but a scoundrel would want to avoid it. But marriage means so much more than that! You bind yourself to stay together, whether love continues or whether it stops; you can’t part, except on some terms that other people set down. You have to make all sorts of promises you don’t intend to keep, and to go through forms you don’t believe in, and it seems to me a cowardly thing to do.”

“But what else can one do?” asked Corydon.

“It’s quite obvious what _we_ could do. We don’t intend to be husband and wife; and so we could simply go away and go on with our work.”

“But think of our parents, Thyrsis!”

“Yes, I know--I’ve thought of them. But if every one thought of his parents, how would the world ever move?”

“But, dearest!” exclaimed Corydon, “if we didn’t marry, they’d simply go out of their senses!”

“I know. But then, they might threaten to go out of their senses if we _did_ marry? And would that work also?”

“We must be sensible,” said the girl. “It means so much to them, and so little to us.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” he answered. “But all the same, I hate it; when you once begin conforming, you never know where you’ll stop.”

“_We_ shall know,” declared the other. “Whatever we may have to do to get married, we shall both of us know that neither would ever dream of wishing to hold the other for a moment after love had ceased. And that is the essential thing, is it not?”

“Yes,” assented Thyrsis. “I suppose so.”

“Well, then, we’ll make that bargain between us; that will be _our_ marriage.”

“That suits me better,” he replied.

She thought for a moment, and then said, with a laugh, “Let us have a little ceremony of our own.”

“Very well,” said he.

“Are you ready for it now?” she inquired. “Your mind is quite made up?”

“Quite made up.”

She looked about her, to make sure that no one was in sight; and then she put her hand in his. “I have been to weddings,” she said. “And so I know how they do it.--I take thee, Thyrsis, to be the companion of my soul. I give myself to thee freely, for the sake of love, and I will stay so long as thy soul is better with me than without. But if ever this should cease to be, I will leave thee; for if my soul is weaker than thine, I have no right to be thy mate.”

She paused. “Is that right?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, “that is right.”

“Very well then,” she said; “and now, you say it!”

And she made him repeat the words--“I take thee, Corydon, to be the companion of my soul. I give myself to thee freely, for the sake of love, and I will stay so long as thy soul is better with me than without. But if ever this should cease to be, I will leave thee; for if my soul is weaker than thine, I have no right to be thy mate.”

“Now,” she exclaimed, with an eager laugh--“now we’re married!” And as he looked he caught the glint of a tear in her eyes.