And yet speech it must be,
for a beginning had to be made somewhere, some time; her mind must be
made accustomed to the idea, her thoughts turned upon the matter of
marriage.
And so he rode overseeing about the plantation, with tightly drawn and
puckered brows, puzzling over the problem, and steeling himself to the
first attempt. A dozen ways he planned an intricate leading up to the
first breaking of the ice, and each time some link in the chain snapped
and the talk went off on unexpected and irrelevant lines. And then one
morning, quite fortuitously, the opportunity came.
"My dearest wish is the success of Berande," Joan had just said, apropos
of a discussion about the cheapening of freights on copra to market.
"Do you mind if I tell you the dearest wish of my heart?" he promptly
returned. "I long for it. I dream about it. It is my dearest desire."
He paused and looked at her with intent significance; but it was plain to
him that she thought there was nothing more at issue than mutual
confidences about things in general.
"Yes, go ahead," she said, a trifle impatient at his delay.
"I love to think of the success of Berande," he said; "but that is
secondary. It is subordinate to the dearest wish, which is that some day
you will share Berande with me in a completer way than that of mere
business partnership.
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