"Daresay I can believe the moon is made of green cheese if I try hard enough. I say, though, serious, whatever for have I got to believe you're rich?"
It was the desired opening. He slipped his hand beneath her arm. "Because I want to spend it on you, Essie. I want to make you happy with me."
He felt and heard her sharply catch her breath. He looked down at her and saw her eyes dim and her face suffuse in sudden rush of colour.
"Oh, Arthur!" Essie said and caught her breath again.
"Let's go up to our seat, Essie."
IV
In silence up to their seat, and on their seat a little space in silence. She first to speak. She, while he sat determining how best to tell her, turned to him eyes starry as the stars that lit them, in which still and deeper yet he saw the moisture that had dimmed them a moment before, and still, and cloudier yet, her face all cloudy red.
She said very softly: "What, have you proposed to me, Arthur, dear?"
He was prepared for anything but that. He was reassuring himself, while they waited in that silence, upon his resolution not to deceive her, not even to pretend he loved her as she understood love, upon his determination, for his honour and for hers (so he convinced himself), straitly, without deception, without temptation, to throw all the burden of decision upon her love for him. This "What, have you proposed to me?" took him unawares. It caught him so unexpectedly that, of its very unexpectedness, it threw out of him its own response where, had he first imagined such a question, to fashion answers to it had filled him with confusion, nay, with dismay.
Its own response! It came to him as a question so ludicrously odd, so blundering, so inept, ah, so characteristic of jolly little Essie's funny little ways, that he gave a little laugh, and put his arm about her shoulders, and playfully squeezed her to him and laughed again and exclaimed "Essie!"