"All right!"--and Robin threw back his head and laughed joyously--"I don't mind! The sensation of even imagining I'm engaged to you is quite agreeable! For one evening, at least, I can assume a sort of proprietorship over you! Innocent! I--I--" He looked so mirthful and mischievous that she smiled, though the teardrops still sparkled on her lashes. "Well? What are you thinking of now?" she asked. "I think--I really think--under the circumstances I ought to kiss you!" he said--"Don't you feel it would be right and proper? Even on the stage the hero and heroine ACT a kiss when they're engaged!" She met his laughing glance with quiet steadfastness. "I cannot act a kiss," she said--"You can, if you like! I don't mind." "You don't mind?" "No." He looked from right to left--the apple-boughs, loaded with rosy fruit, were intertwined above them like a canopy--the sinking sun made mellow gold of all the air, and touched the girl's small figure with a delicate luminance--his heart beat, and for a second his senses swam in a giddy whirl of longing and ecstasy--then he suddenly pulled himself together. "Dear Innocent, I wouldn't kiss you for the world!" he said, gently--"It would be taking a mean advantage of you. I only spoke in fun. There!--dry your pretty eyes!--you sweet, strange, romantic little soul! You shall have it all your own way!" She drew a long breath of evident relief. "Then you'll tell your uncle--" "Anything you like!" he answered. "By-the-bye, oughtn't he to be home by this time?" "He may have been kept by some business," she said--"He won't be long now. You'll say we're engaged?" "Yes." "And perhaps"--went on Innocent--"you might ask him not to have the banns put up yet as we don't want it known quite so soon--" "I'll do all I can," he replied, cheerily--"all I can to keep him quiet, and to make you happy! There! I can't say more!" Her eyes shone upon him with a grateful tenderness. "You are very good, Robin!" He laughed. "Good! Not I! But I can't bear to see you fret--if I had my way you should never know a moment's trouble that I could keep from you. But I know I'm not a patch on your old stone knight who wrote such a lot about his 'ideal'--and yet went and married a country wench and had six children. Don't frown, dear! Nothing will make me say he was romantic! Not a bit of it! He wrote a lot of romantic things, of course--but he didn't mean half of them!--I'm sure he didn't!" She coloured indignantly. "You say that because you know nothing about it," she said--"You have not read his writings."