"Only to the rose-garden," he snapped. "Don't be alarmed! I shan't keep you longer than I can help." He lighted a cigarette. Vaguely he felt that some such subsidiary occupation might prove helpful. "In a moment of pardonable madness," he began, "the night before last, when I rather lost my head in my passion, I made a proposition to you which I should now like to recall." "Oh," she said. "I don't mean that it was not sincere," he pursued, "or that I was not moved by an unalterable feeling. I mean that it was not serious enough." "Not serious enough?" she repeated. "No, perhaps it was not quite the right thing, either," he said. "And I'm very sorry." "Oh, that's all right," she rejoined cheerfully. "Well, it isn't," he observed. "Because, Leo, I seriously wanted you, and I want you still. And I ought to have asked you to become engaged to me in the proper and ordinary way, instead of what I did say." She was silent. Her head was bowed, and she kicked one or two stones along as she walked. He caught hold of her hand. "I want you to forget what I said the night before last," he continued, "and to ascribe it all to the madness of my feelings. I want you to say, too, that I may consider,--that from now onwards I mean,--that we are properly engaged." Still she made no reply. "Come, Leo, you're not hesitating, are you? Won't you marry me?" She stopped, released her hand from his, and averted her gaze. "Say you'll marry me, Leo! So that I can tell them in a minute or two that you have consented. Do!" "Whatever made you think of this?" she exclaimed fretfully. "I have been thinking of it for some time. I mean it truly," he stammered. "But I thought you loved my sister!" Denis retreated a step or two and regarded the girl for a moment in mystified silence. He was staggered. This piece of brazen audacity on her part petrified him, and his face betrayed his speechless astonishment. "I really did, Denis. I thought you loved Cleo." "But then," he gasped, "what--what have you and I been doing all this time?" "When?" "Why, the day before yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that!--in fact ever since I came down here?" "Oh, I thought you were simply having a good time," she protested, looking perfectly guileless and charming. "Well!" he exclaimed, choking with mingled stupefaction and rage, "I've never heard anything----" "I did really," she interrupted. "I thought you were only flirting." "You let me go far enough to believe anything," he objected, this time with a savour of moral indignation. "I thought it was too far to believe anything," was her retort. "Haven't you any feeling for me, then?" he cried, utterly nonplussed. She dug the toe of her shoe into the ground, and watched the operation thoughtfully. "Not in that way--no." "What?--do you allow anybody to hug you then?" "No, of course not!" she replied. "I did like you, and I like you still. But not in that way."