"If I take you by surprise—" he began, as he felt the clouds of reality closing round him.
"No," she broke in, still without looking up at him; "I heard you intended to ask me."
Though he made a little uneasy movement, he knew that this was precisely what she might have been expected to say.
"I thought you had possibly heard that," he said, in her own tone of quiet frankness, "and I want to explain to you that what happened was an accident."
"So I imagined."
"If I spoke of you as my future wife, I must ask you to believe that it was in the way of neither ill-timed jest nor foolish boast."
"You needn't assure me of that, because I could never have thought so. If I want assurance at all it's on other points."
"If I can explain them—"
"I can almost explain them myself. What I require is rather in the way of corroboration. Wasn't it much as the knight of old threw the mantle of his protection over the shoulders of a distressed damsel?"
"I know what you mean; but I don't admit the justice of the simile."