"No! no! It was something you said before that." Her eyes completed what her words had left unsaid.

Horace's arm stole round her waist.
"I was saying that I loved you," he answered, in a whisper.
"Only that ?" "Are you tired of hearing it ?" She smiled charmingly.

"Are you so very much in earnest about--about--" She stopped, and looked away from him.
"About our marriage ?" "Yes." "It is the one dearest wish of my life." "Really ?" "Really." There was a pause.

Mercy's fingers toyed nervously with the trinkets at her watch-chain.

"When would you like it to be ?" she said, very softly, with her whole attention fixed on the watch-chain.
She had never spoken, she had never looked, as she spoke and looked now.
Horace was afraid to believe in his own good fortune.