'Oh, I'm just going, thank you. Stella has been blowing me up for not being with my parents. There's a little filly I've had sent to my father's for you to ride, Stella. May I come and take you out on Tuesday morning?'
Stella hesitated, and then consented to the arrangement. The brother and sister accompanied their guest to the house, where he made his adieus to the rest of the family. He then mounted his horse and rode away.
The brother and sister returned to the arcade. Cuthbert was the first to speak.
'Stella, there is a question I want to ask, and I'm almost afraid to put it.'
The girl looked up quickly, and then a smile slowly crept over her face.
'Dear darling boy, don't be afraid to ask me questions--as if they were lighted matches that might fall into gunpowder.'
'Has anything special passed between you and Ritchie?'
'Then why do you go out riding with him on Tuesday?'
'Stella dear, don't trifle about this. Is it fair to him?'
'I think it's not only fair, but generous. He asks me to marry him. I cannot make up my mind to do so at present. In the meantime, I bind up his wounded spirit with the balm of friendship.'
'Yes, that's it. You refuse him time after time----'
'Not invariably. Do not blame me too severely. You see, I have tried all the recognised modes of treating a lover. I have refused him and accepted him, and sometimes done neither. When he has asked me for a stone I give him bread--the nourishment of occasional social intercourse instead of the terrible disillusion of marriage.'
'All this may be very well from a comedy point of view. But remember, it is not for the amusement of a passing hour that a man persists in asking a woman to be his wife year after year.'
'No. But still, dear, remember how much more amusing it is than if she had married him the first time of asking.'
'But now let me ask you seriously, what is to be the end of it all? I cannot understand you in the least, Stella, in this matter. To begin with, it is a mystery to me that you should find pleasure in Ted's society, and yet I believe you do.'
'Ah, Cuth, you haven't heard Ted give an account of the Bible Patriarchs'--and the girl burst into a peal of laughter so infectiously merry that her brother was forced to smile. 'As for asking what is to be the end of it all, why, that is a question we keep on asking as long as people live, and, most of all, when they die.'