"Didn't you hear?"
"I'm most awfully sorry!—No, I'm afraid—not quite all."
"You were thinking of something else!"
"Well, perhaps—just for a minute," admitted Ned, with an air of penitence.
Magda drew a long breath; for this was rather hard. So unlike Ned!
"I think you had better have your say first," she suggested, with great magnanimity. "I'll tell you the rest of mine presently—when you've got yours off your mind."
It flashed across her, suddenly and brilliantly—what if he wanted to ask her to marry him? True, his ordinary manner was not that of the typical lover. But this might only be because they were so entirely at ease in their intercourse. His present absence of mind and evident embarrassment had a suspicious look; and it might be so! He might wish it! The notion had never before presented itself to her imagination in so luminous a light; though at the same instant she realised that she had thought of it, had pictured it, had hoped for it, not on the upper surface of her mind, but in some shady half-acknowledged corner. And if he did—if it should mean this! She would have no doubt what answer to give. There was nobody like Ned—no, not in all the world.
Her heart beat fast, and her colour heightened. "Go on," she said carelessly. "Tell me what you want."
Ned was almost nervous. He said nothing, but walked slowly, poking his stick into the ground at regular intervals, as if marking out an embroidery pattern.
"Perhaps," and she paused, "you are in need of a pair of bedroom slippers. Shall I make them?"