We gave them, with full throats. (Fortunately we were a long way from Phillis's room.) After that we all sat down again, feeling a little awkward, as people do when they have taken the lid off their private feelings for a moment. Finally Kitty led off with-- "But, Dolly, dear, why didn't you tell us? When was it?" "I didn't tell you before," said Dolly composedly, "because it has only just happened--this moment." "Only this moment? But----" "Do you mean to say he hasn't _asked_ you? Oh----" "Are you asking _him_?" The questions came simultaneously from all parts of the table; horribly inquisitive, some of them; but then the thing had been so frankly and deliberately done, that we knew Dolly wanted to explain everything to us there and then. "I'll tell you," said Dolly, after silence had been restored by the fact that Gerald had shouted us all down and then stopped himself. "Robin told me--well--something, six months ago, the night after Dilly's wedding, at the dance----" "That _was_ why you locked the door, then," I said involuntarily. Both Robin and Dolly turned upon me in real amazement. But I saw that this side-issue would interrupt the story. "Never mind!" I said. "Go on! I'll explain afterwards." "Well," continued Dolly, "he said to me--may I tell them, Robin?" She turned to the man beside her with a pretty air of deference. Robin, who up to this point had sat like a graven image, inclined his head, and Dolly proceeded-- "I have never told anybody about this--except Dilly, of course." "I've got the letter still," said Dilly. "Robin told me," Dolly went on, "that he wasn't going to ask me to marry him at present, because he had some childish idea--it is perfectly _idiotic_ to think of; but--he thought he wasn't quite--well, _good_ enough for me!" "What rot!" said Dicky. "Muck!" observed Gerald. "But he said that he would ask me properly later on, as soon as he considered that he was good enough," continued Dolly. "And as he still seems to think," she concluded with more animation, "that he is not quite up to standard, it occurred to me to-night, as we were all here in a jolly little party, to notify him that he is. So I did. That's all. Robin, you are hurting my hand!" Robin relaxed his grip at last, and remorsefully surveyed the bloodless fingers that lay in his palm. Then, with a rather shamefaced look all round the table, as much as to say--"I should like fine to restrain myself from doing this before you all, but I _can't_!"--he bent his head and kissed them in his turn. And that was how Robin and Dolly plighted their troth at last--openly, without shame, and for all to see. * * * * * Robin and I lingered at the turning of a passage, lit only by our two flickering bedroom candles. "Well, we can't complain of having had an uneventful day," I said. "I'm sorry we didn't scrape other twenty-eight votes," said Robin characteristically.