"Why do you ask me all this rot?" she said, with another uneasy laugh. "Of course I shall."
Harry couldn't think of anything else to say. Then he remembered....
"When I join you again I'm going to bring you a ring. What's your favourite stone?"
"Rubies and diamonds," she answered without a moment's hesitation. "I say, how sporting of you! That'll be ripping!"
He tried to feel touched by her artless joy. He knew he was not an ideally ardent suitor.
"Well, we'll have a good time later on, eh?" he said in her own tone.
"Don't be a silly ass!" replied the girl, her eyes full of tears and tenderness, and her heart of the most sincere joy and affection.
"Tell me, Alec, is your mother a soothing companion? Is she a nice woman to live with?"
"Oh! _she's_ all right. A bit off colour sometimes. At least--well, she _is_ all right, if you understand--and yet she's _not_--if you know what I mean."
"Ah! that is a dark saying. You are pleased to be mysterious--sphinx-like."
"How subtle you are, Alec. How elusive is the lightning-play of your wit!"
"The random poppy of paradox grows too often in the golden cornfield of your conversation," Harry went on, taking her hand.
"Oh, rats!" exclaimed the artless girl. "Can't make out what you're driving at half the time, when you go on like that. Don't believe you know yourself."
"Don't I? Really now, you know, we're almost--well--privately engaged. May I kiss you, Alec?"
She blushed crimson, turned her face away, and said, "Please yourself."
Unable to help laughing, he kissed the top of her head, told her to write to him, and left the house, feeling like an entirely new and recently-discovered kind of bounder.
He hated the double game. It didn't amuse him a bit. But now he felt he was free for a month's holiday, during which he had, however, the unpleasant holiday task of breaking the news to Valentia.
He was driving home, but changed his mind and called out to the cabman to drive to Valentia's house.
He found her trying on furs--furs in mid-summer!
She greeted the arrival of his exquisite discrimination and taste with clapped hands, soft, beaming eyes, and her smile--Valentia's smile. Miss Walmer couldn't smile at all--she didn't know how. She could only laugh.