"About ten days ago." "And you there! What nerve! Did he let himself be introduced to you, or what?" "He came up and shook hands with me. In fact he carried everything off very competently." "Carried everything off ..." she repeated, looking away over the corn. "And has he been since then?" "We had tea with him in his garden one afternoon." "One afternoon ..." she murmured again. "How does Jennie spend most of her time?" "I've been laid up in bed." "Of course," she nodded. Apparently she passed it as a good man's answer, as men's answers go. But my own question she did not appear to dream of answering. Except to compare it with another man's similar question she might not have heard it. Nor had I asked that question only as the solution of an otherwise insoluble problem. Happy I, could I have taken her into my arms there and then. So I waited, my eyes in the shadow of her panama, while she continued to look far away. Then, "I see," she said yet once more. "Of course I ought to have known in the tent." "In the tent?" "The bathing-tent. She could hardly bear to share it with me. But she let me have the little stool, and untied a knot for me, and carried my wet things home." "Madge Aird's daughter wouldn't behave altogether too unlike a lady." "Madge Aird's daughter's a woman," she replied. Then her whole tone changed. She confronted me. "That that you've just been saying is all nonsense, of course," she said abruptly. "You know it is. What happened in July puts that out of the question once for all. How can you possibly ask that woman to marry you?" "I have asked her." "She isn't her own to marry anybody. And I don't see how Derry can marry anybody either. What's he going to do--forge papers, or impersonate somebody?... No, George; my way was the only way--take what you can while you can." "Marry me, come right away, and have done with it." She gave me a slow sidelong look. "Is _that_ the idea--just a way out for everybody?" "Don't think it. I didn't begin to love you this afternoon." "Proposals pour in--once they start!" she admired. "Oh, how little we know when we're young, and how much when it's too late to make any difference!" "Julia," I said abruptly, "what do you intend to do about him?" She smiled, but without speaking. "Are you going to see him?" "That's a silly question. Of course I am." "Is it wise?" "I'm not wise. I suppose I should be Lady Coverham if I were wise." "What are you going to do about Jennie?" "Oh, I shan't fly out at her." "Marry me and come away." She shook her head. "That's the one thing I _am_ sure about." "Then don't marry me, but come back to England." "And leave the field clear? I see that too. Of course you want to give her to him." "If you only knew how I've striven to prevent it!"