"Shall we stick to the point?" asked Dick. "My cab is waiting."
Mackenzie's face looked murderous for a moment, but he had himself in hand at once. "The point is," he said, "that I am going to marry your sister, with her consent."
"The point is how you got her consent. I am here in place of my father—and hers. If she marries you she marries you, but she doesn't do it before I tell her what she is letting herself in for."
"Then perhaps you will tell her that."
"I will." Dick looked at Cicely. "I should like to ask you to begin with when you first met—Mr. Mackenzie," he said.
"Dear Dick!" cried Cicely, "don't be so cruel. I—I—was discontented at home, and I——"
"We met first at Graham's house," said Mackenzie, "when you were there. I first spoke to her alone on Sunday afternoon, and she promised to come away and marry me on Sunday night. Now go on."
"That was when you told Graham that you couldn't sleep, I suppose, in the middle of the night."
"I walked over from Mountfield, and she came to me in the garden, as I had asked her to. We were together about three minutes."
Dick addressed Cicely again, still with the same cold authority. "You were discontented at home. You can tell me why afterwards. You meet this man and hear him bragging of his great deeds, and when he takes you by surprise and asks you to marry him, you are first of all rather frightened, and then you think it would be an adventure to go off with him. Is that it?"