"Well, dear, I suppose I ought to have risen to my full height, and, with a few superb gestures of haughty contempt, have swept majestically from the room. But--I didn't! I saw I was in for another proposal, and as the man couldn't eat me I decided to let him do his worst. "It was a weird proposal, though." [_Spelt 'wierd.'_] "It wasn't exactly what he said, because one is never surprised at anything a man may say when he is proposing; but the way he said it. All men say pretty much the same thing in the end, but most of them are so _horribly_ nervous that they simply don't know what they're talking about for the first five minutes or so. (Do you remember poor little Algy Brock? He was nearly _crying_ all the time. At least he was with me, and I suppose he was with you too.) But Robin might have been having a chat with his solicitor the way he behaved. I'll tell you..." Robin apparently began by telling Dolly, quite simply and plainly, that he loved her. Then he gave a brief outline of the history of his affection. It had begun at the very beginning of things, he said, almost as soon as he discovered that he could distinguish Dolly from Dilly without the aid of the brown spot. "And that was after I had been in the house just three days," he added. For some time, it appeared, he had been content to be pleasantly in love. He enjoyed Dolly's society when it came his way, but with native caution he had taken care to avoid seeking too much of it in case he should gradually find himself unable to do without it. "I saw from the first," he said, "that you were entirely unconscious of my feelings towards you; and I would not have had it otherwise. If I was to succeed at all it must be as an acquired taste; and acquired tastes, as you know, are best formed unconsciously." Dolly nodded to show her detached appreciation of the soundness of this point. "I permitted myself one indulgence," Robin continued. "I dedicated a book to you." "O-oh!" said Dolly, genuinely interested. "Was that me? Dilly and I thought it must be a girl in Scotland." Then she realised that this was a step down from her pedestal of aloofness, and was silent again. Robin went on-- "Yes, it was you. It was a sentimental thing to do, but it afforded me immense pleasure. Love lives more on the homage it pays than that which it receives. Have you noticed that?" "I have never thought about it," said Dolly distantly. "I thought not," replied Robin; "because it shows, what I have always been tolerably certain of, that you have never been in love. However, to resume." [_"Like a lecture on Greek Roots, or something equally fusty,"_ observes Dolly at this point.] "The time came, as it was bound to come, when I realised that I must tell you I loved you"----