"It's the second sort that I don't understand," sighed the Welsh girl. "If a man is fond of a girl, why doesn't he want to say so at once?" Golden shook her head. "Now that is something that I can't tell you." Presently Olwen said, as if getting rid of something that had been a little on her mind, "I read in a book of essays about engagements and things, that Mrs. Newton lent me, that '_a Proposal was one-half the Engineering of Some Girl, and one-half the False Pretences of Some Man_' ... but I hope that's not quite true...." "It is not true," said the American girl serenely. "It's ugly." With this profoundly simple remark, uttered as if it were some creed, she turned with Olwen down Warren Street; and they were half-way to Baker Street station before either of them spoke again. Then said the Sunburst Girl, "I wouldn't have missed this walk. I think you needed to talk to somebody who knows Love's lovely." "Somebody who seems to upset things I thought were _settled_," grumbled Olwen, affectionately. "That's why I'm glad I came with you. I just hate to see you in a hurry to settle all the wrong things!" Olwen persisted. "For the umpteenth time, as Mr. Ellerton would say, that man doesn't care two-pence about me, Golden." "Just because he hasn't proposed?" smiled Golden as she took the last word. "But he will. Watch out for it. Good night, dear." The heavy furs lifted to her gesture as she turned, then swung away under the stars towards the South. CHAPTER VI THE CHARM REMEMBERED "A is happy, oh, so happy! A is happy, B is not." Gilbert. The words of Golden remained with her friend all the way back to Wembley Park, down the Drive of little red-roofed villas, and up the short-flagged path between the standard rose-bushes that led to her Aunt's front door. Olwen took her latch-key from her bag and let herself in; as she did so she heard the voice of the Aunt from the sitting-room, "Is that you, dear?" "Yes! I'll be down in a minute," she called back, and ran straight upstairs to the bedroom with the pink-curtained window that overlooked the back lawn. She wanted to be alone for a moment or so. She had just told the Sunburst Girl that what she wanted was amusement, but what she would have liked now would have been solitude. Why had Golden unsettled her again like this, when she had been getting along so cheerfully? She sat down on the edge of the springy brass-railed bed drawn up against the window. It was open, and the breeze stirred in the curtain behind her head, full of uneasy thought.... As she drew the hat-pins from her head she glanced restlessly about her room, bright, girlishly pink-and-white, with the atmosphere of a room that had been lived in happily enough. Mechanically Olwen's eyes fell upon the dressing-table, upon the crystal powder-box, upon the signed photograph of Professor Howel-Jones--about the frame of which there was twisted a long piece of pink ribbon, sewn to----