`` Theodora , '' said Anne coaxingly , `` I am going to be curious and impertinent . You can snub me if you like . Why do n't you and Ludovic get married ? '' Theodora laughed comfortably . `` That 's the question Grafton folks have been asking for quite a while , I reckon , Anne . Well , I 'd have no objection to marrying Ludovic . That 's frank enough for you , is n't it ? But it 's not easy to marry a man unless he asks you . And Ludovic has never asked me . '' `` Is he too shy ? '' persisted Anne . Since Theodora was in the mood , she meant to sift this puzzling affair to the bottom . Theodora dropped her work and looked meditatively out over the green slopes of the summer world . `` No , I do n't think it is that . Ludovic is n't shy . It 's just his way -- the Speed way . The Speeds are all dreadfully deliberate . They spend years thinking over a thing before they make up their minds to do it . Sometimes they get so much in the habit of thinking about it that they never get over it -- like old Alder Speed , who was always talking of going to England to see his brother , but never went , though there was no earthly reason why he should n't . They 're not lazy , you know , but they love to take their time . ''
`` And Ludovic is just an aggravated case XXXXX Speedism , '' suggested Anne .
Since before for if in of over that to unless