"I don't wonder," he said involuntarily, yet the next moment he did wonder, knowing all. But he could hardly think of even Fulvia yet, standing by Ethel, knowing that at last she might be his own. "Just one look!" he pleaded.
The blue eyes glanced up, arch and sweet.
"It is your own self," he said. He had waited patiently all these weeks, but now he felt that he could wait no longer. Another hour of uncertainty would be unbearable. Confident as he might feel at times, he had never really put the question to her; and it broke from him in this moment of meeting.
"Ethel, tell me!" he said huskily. "There is nothing now to keep us apart. Tell me—dearest—will you have me?"
"Yes!" she whispered. The same brief answer which she had given once before, on a certain wintry afternoon, to a somewhat different question of his; and it meant a plenitude of trust and joy.
Then Mr. Elvey hurried up, just too late for the train's arrival; and Daisy sauntered back from the luggage. Fulvia, following, gave one glance at the two faces, and lifted quizzical eyebrows.
"Already!" she murmured. "You are a prompt man! But of course—it is a mere matter of form!"
"Fulvie, I can never thank you enough," Nigel said earnestly the same evening. "Never!"
"For what?" she asked.
"For—everything!"