"I really--do--not--know!" With each word was a nod. "I am too busy to get married. I don't want a husband yet. He'd be so in the way." She looked at him, eyebrows slightly raised. "I don't think that expression on your face suits you. And if I've got to look at it all through supper it won't make things taste very nice. That is one of the troubles about getting married. The foot of the table could be so unpleasant!" With a half frown, half sigh, he turned his head away. "I wonder if you will ever grow up? And I wonder, also, if in all your thought for others you will ever think of me?" He stood aside that she might pass between the vine-covered pillars marking the entrance to Tree Hill, and looking ahead saw Hedwig standing in the porch. "There is you friend faithful," he said, and his face cleared. Chapter X THE FORGOTTEN ENGAGEMENT Then minutes later they were at the table and again alone. Hedwig had left them, and John, leaning forward, held out his glass. "More tea and less ice, please," he said, nodding between the candles and over the bowl of lilacs to the girl at the head of the table. "I don't see why women put so much ice in these queer-shaped glasses, anyhow. All ice and no tea makes--" The glass he had handed her came down with a crash, and Mary Cary's hands were beaten together in sudden excited dismay. "Oh, my goodness! Guess what we've done--/guess/ what we've done!" she repeated over and over, and now it was her elbows with which the table was thumped. "It is your fault, John! You know I haven't a bit of memory about some things, and you ought to have reminded me! I told you not to let me forget! You know I told you!" "In the name of thunderation!" John Maxwell put down his fork and pushed back his chair. "Is it hydrophobia or hysterics or brain trouble or--For the love of mercy--" "What time is it? Do you suppose we have time to go now, or is it too late? Why /did/ you let me forget?" And now, standing up, Mary Cary looked despairingly first at John and then at the clock, at sight of which she sank back limply in her chair. "Would you mind telling me what crime we've committed?" John got up and filled his glass with tea. "It's worse than a crime. It's a discourtesy. Anybody might forgive any sort of sin, but nobody forgives rudeness. The council meeting will be nothing to this." "But what have we done?" John, still standing, put one, two, three lumps of sugar in his tea. "I thought you were having a fit, and convulsions were going to follow. You scared me silly. What's the fuss about?" She leaned forward dejectedly, elbows on the table, then put her hand over the sugar-bowl. "You can't have four lumps! You know sweet things don't suit you. We were to take tea with Mrs. Deford to-night. You knew we were, and you didn't remind me. Sit down. You haven't a bit of manners."