"I'd love to go with you," I answered.
I put on a long cloak, the one I had worn to see "our" battery off at Fort Alvarado railway station, and Tony and I sallied forth together. It was not till we were safely in the street that he told me we were early for the procession. "Never mind," said I. "It's lovely to be out in the blue night. We'll just stroll through quiet streets, where there won't be a crowd to bother us, until it's time to go and gaze at the torches."
"There's a nice little sort of park," he suggested, "not too far away. How would you like to walk there?"
I said I would like it, and as our "little sort of" park wasn't the park whence the procession would start, we had it practically to ourselves. We found an empty seat and sat down side by side like a Tommy Atkins and his "girl" in Kensington Gardens.
The first thing that Tony did when we were anchored together there was to propose again, after an apology. I let him get it over, and then played the next pawn in my game.
CHAPTER XI
"Tony dear," I said softly, when he had finished, "I like you better than any man I know, except one; and that one thinks of me as his good little sister, so you needn't be afraid of his interference. But—there's something that does interfere!"
"What is it?" he eagerly wanted to know.
"It is—that you don't really love me."