'Well, I'll go over it—and you check me if I make a mistake. It was eighteen months later. We hadn't seen each other for nearly a year. You were in the garden when I came. Is that right?'
'Yes.'
'I saw your mother and told her I was going to try my luck again, and she said I had her consent and good wishes. The moment you saw me you asked if any gifted year-old colt had hit his leg, I looked so serious; and then you said: "Oh, you are going to be foolish again"——'
'And you were, and I was still more foolish—for you knew your own mind, and I didn't know mine.'
'Foolish! By George! when I think about you, and feel rather savage, I remember that once in your life, anyhow, you were good and sensible; and that's the day you promised to be my wife, and sat beside me in the arbour of Spanish reeds, with the scarlet japonica hanging on it in bundles.'
'You certainly have rather a dreadful memory.'
'Yes—you wore a cream-coloured dress like the one you have on now. I could tell you every word you said—and, by heaven! I could tell you, too, how I felt a week afterwards when I got your letter at Strathhaye breaking it all off, and saying it was a frightful mistake on your part.'
'Well, Ted, do you want me to say again how sorry I am? Do you want me to grovel in the dust all my life because of that blunder? After all, you brought it on yourself by being so persistent when I was in rather a weak-minded mood.'
'Weak-minded? You never were half so good before or since. And you had quite got rid of all that stuff about convents and Papists.'
'You must not speak so disrespectfully of these things.'