"Why? Because I don't wish to discuss the marriage question? I am so sick of it. If that is all you want, go and read Björnson and all the others. Modern fiction is crammed with it, so is the modern drama. Your brother can lend you crowds of books about the marriage question--he won't want them for a year or two." She ended with a little hard laugh. "You know I don't care a hang for the marriage question," he said sulkily. "No more do I," she said cheerfully, "so we'll let it drop. I am so glad you are not modern. Do you know, the first night I saw you--" "Yes?" he said eagerly, as she stopped. It is a sure sign of comradeship when two people begin comparing notes about their first meeting. "Oh," she continued carelessly, "I only felt relieved that you had no views and no ideas, and didn't want a revolution like your brother, and never fell in love with people. It made you so nice to flirt with, that was all. Thank Heaven, we are going on again at last." Jack only hated the policeman for letting them pass; the fog was lifting in Oxford Street, and they were rolling along quickly in the direction of Pont Street; there was no time to be lost. "Do listen seriously for once," he suggested; "why shouldn't marriage between two fellows--" "I thought we had agreed to let it drop," she interrupted impatiently. "But it isn't the marriage question. It--it's marriage itself," he cried desperately, and then held his breath. They had turned down Park Lane into the yellow darkness again, and the two in the brougham could not even see each other's features. Outside, the policemen were shouting directions; within the carriage, Lady Joan was leaning back far in her corner, and thinking swiftly. Was this to be the solution of all that had been puzzling her this afternoon? It was not often that Lady Joan was depressed; but when she was, a yellow fog was not more gloomy than her mood. "Don't you see how I've loved you all the time? It's not my form to gas like Digby, and I suppose I'm a bally idiot, because the guvnor always says I am, and of course I haven't any oof; so it's all confounded cheek on my part, it is really, don't you know. But--you said you hated to be married, so why shouldn't we be engaged, just enough to stop people from talking, don't you know, so that we could belong, sort of; do you twig? I'd give you my word of honor to go back to the States, and work like a nigger till--till you sent for me again. That wouldn't bother you, and it might be rather jolly, don't you know. And that's all there is to it." She was still silent. If he had known that she was comparing his proposal with the one she had had in the summer, and calculating how much happiness and comfort she was likely to get out of his romantic attachment to her, his ideal of her might have received a shock. But for the sake of ideals some thoughts are allowed to go unread; and he only noticed that she moved a little out of her corner, and he at once drew nearer to her.