He looked disappointed—man like.
“I shall be here,” he said, “and I’ll wait all day if you like.”
She laughed softly, her eyes dwelling upon him lovingly.
“Without your lunch or your dinner? That would be too much. No; if you come and I am not here, leave some message for me,” she looked round; “write me a word, and put it under this big stone by the tree there.”
“All right,” he said. “But you will come, if not in the morning, in the afternoon—sometime! Remember, I am to see your guardian to-morrow!”
“Yes,” she said. “But do you remember, too, that I am not my own master, Lord Neville—that I belong to the public.”
“Indeed, Miss Marlowe?” he said, retorting the formality upon her. “I was under the impression that you belonged to me!”
“Ah, yes,” she murmured, with sweet surrender, as he held her in his arms.
“We’ve forgotten one part of the ceremony,” he said. “People when they are engaged give each other a ring. I wasn’t conceited enough to think that you’d listen to me, or I would have brought one.”
“Have mine,” she said. Then, suddenly, she disengaged her hand, and held it up, and swiftly drew from her finger a quaint old silver ring. “See,” she said, the color stealing into her face. “Will you have that?”