Again there was silence. For the first time in her life she was afraid to speak, lest she should betray the commotion in her being. She loved him. She did not hide the fact from herself. It was not the mad, gorgeous passion of romance; she knew it for something deeper, stronger, based on essentials. He lay deeply rooted in her heart, half child for her mothering, all man for her loving. When had she begun to care for him? She scarcely knew. Perhaps at Marseilles, when he had returned to her for companionship and they had walked out arm in arm. She knew that he spoke truly of his need of her. But the words that mattered, the foolish little words; he had not uttered. “Do you care for me enough to marry me?” she asked, at last. He glanced at Sheila weighing out matches in her toy scales. It is difficult to carry on a love-scene with conviction in the presence of a third party, even of that of a beloved child of five. “Very, very, deeply,” he said in a low voice. The dressing-bell rang and Clementina rose. “Put up your shop, darling. It’s time to go to bed.” Then she crossed to Quixtus’s chair and stood behind him and laid one arm on his shoulder. He kissed her hand. “Well?” said he, looking up. “I’ll tell you presently,” she said, and in withdrawing her hand, she lightly brushed his cheek. Quixtus dressed quickly and came down early to the drawing-room, and soon Clementina appeared. She was wearing a red dress which she had bought during her wholesale purchasing of raiment, but had never yet worn, thinking it too flaring, and she had a red dahlia in her hair. Quixtus took both her hands and raised them to his shoulders, and she stood away from him at the distance of her bare; shapely arms, and she smiled into his eyes. “Your answer?” said he. “Tell me,” she said. “What do you really want me for?” “For yourself,” he cried, and he caught her in his arms with swift passion and kissed her. “If you hadn’t said that,” she remarked a few moments afterwards, “I don’t know what my answer would have been. At any rate,” she added, touching her hair with uplifted hands, “it would not have been quite so spontaneous.” He leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece and a great light came into his pale blue eyes as he looked at her. “Do you think, my dear,” said he, “that I’m such a dry stick of a man as not to want you for your great self—your great, splendid, and wonderful self? I want you with everything in me.” She turned half aside and said gently; “That’s all a woman wants, Ephraim.” “What?” “To be wanted,” said Clementina. It was not till the next day that she told Tommy the great news. She took him for a walk and broke it to him bluntly. But he was prepared for it. Etta had foreseen and had prophesied to his sceptical ears. He murmured well-bred congratulations. “But your painting,” said he, after a while.