“What fun it’s going to be,” she said; “we shall announce our engagement and then everyone will write and congratulate us, and we shall have to answer them, and I shall have to pretend to be so serious and say: ‘I am much looking forward to introducing you to my fiancé. I hope you will like each other.”
“And what sort of a ring am I to get you?”
“The ring! Oh, I had forgotten that. One has to have one, doesn’t one? Let’s see now. What should I like?” And she paused, her finger raised to her lower lip. She remained for a moment in perplexed consideration, then suddenly shook her head.
“Oh, I don’t care, just what you like. Let it be a surprise. But there’s one thing, Roland, dear—promise me.”
“Yes.”
“You will promise, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Well, then, promise me you won’t put any writing inside it, because I shall want to show it to my friends and I should feel so silly if they saw it.”
After lunch Mr. Marston asked him to come into the study for a talk.
“I’m not going to play the heavy father,” he said; “in fact, you know yourself how thoroughly pleased we are, both of us, about it all. We couldn’t have wished a better husband for Muriel. But there is such a thing as finance, and you’ve got, I gather, no money apart from what you earn from us.”