`` But WHY ? '' persisted Mrs. George , sticking tenaciously to her point . `` Has n't George told you ? '' `` No , '' said George 's wife in mild exasperation . `` George has spent most of his time since we were married telling me odd things about the Penhallows , but he has n't got to that yet , evidently . '' `` Why , my dear , it is our family romance . Lucinda and Romney are in love with each other . They have been in love with each other for fifteen years and in all that time they have never spoken to each other once ! '' `` Dear me ! '' murmured Mrs. George , feeling the inadequacy of mere language . Was this a Penhallow method of courtship ? `` But WHY ? '' `` They had a quarrel fifteen years ago , '' said Mrs. Frederick patiently . `` Nobody knows how it originated or anything about it except that Lucinda herself admitted it to us afterwards . But , in the first flush of her rage , she told Romney that she would never speak to him again as long as she lived . And HE said he would never speak to her until she spoke first -- because , you see , as she was in the wrong she ought to make the first advance . And they never have spoken . Everybody in the connection , I suppose , has taken turns trying to reconcile them , but nobody has succeeded . I do n't believe that Romney has ever so much as THOUGHT of any other woman in his whole life , and certainly Lucinda has never thought of any other man . You will notice she still wears Romney 's ring .
They 're practically engaged still , XXXXX course .
about as but except in of since that to until