"I'm not so sure. I don't know that any _harm_ would come of waiting a bit, and I daresay it's all very pleasant meanwhile. But you can go on with your love-making after you're engaged just as well as before." "Ah! If we _were_ engaged!" "Pfush!" quoth Sarella, inventing a word which stood her in stead of "Pshaw." Gore had to laugh again, and no doubt her good-natured certainty encouraged him--albeit he did not believe she knew Mariquita. "What o'clock shall you propose?" she inquired coolly. Of course he could not tell her. "I guess," she said, "it will be between two and three. Dinner at twelve. Digestion and preliminaries, 12:45 to 1:45. Proposal 2:45 say. You will be engaged by 2:50." As before, Gore liked the encouragement though very largely discounting its worth. "On the whole," Sarella observed, "I daresay my old man has done good--as he has made himself scarce. If he hadn't threatened to put his own foot in it, you might have gone on staring up at Mariquita in the stars till she was forty, and then it might have struck you that you could get on fine without her." Sarella evidently thought that nothing was to be done before the time she had indicated; during the morning she was in evidence as usual, but immediately after dinner she retreated to her studies, and was seen no more for a long time. Gore boldly announced his intention to be idle and told Mariquita she must be idle too, begging her to ride with him. To himself it seemed as if everyone about the place must see that something was in the wind; but the truth was that everyone had been so long expecting something definite to happen without hearing of it, that some of them had decided that Gore and Mariquita had fixed up their engagement already at some unsuspected moment, and the rest had almost ceased to expect to hear anything. As to Mariquita, she was clearly unsuspicious that this afternoon was to have any special significance for her. Always cheerful and unembarrassed, she was exactly her usual self, untroubled by the faintest presentiment of fateful events. Her ready agreement to Gore's proposal that they should ride together was, he knew well, of no real good omen. It made him have a guilty feeling, as if he were getting her out under false pretences.