"I dare say," she assented. "Anyhow, you didn't and don't mean to. Don't deny it. I know how you've always thought of me. I've been just Finetta, of the Diadem, and it's been pleasant and amusing to take me about and come and have supper, and—and that's all."
She raised her eyes to his face with a smile, a brave smile that did not hide her aching heart from him.
"And we've been such very good friends," she went on after a pause, "that I speak out straight and plain when I see that something is the matter, and I ask you what it is, and if you take my advice, you'll tell me. Who knows, I might be able to help you, if you want any help. Don't laugh. What's that story about the lion and the mouse? I'm only a mouse I know, and you are no end of a lion, but you may find yourself in a net some day, don't you know."
Her tone was slangy, but there was an earnestness in it, and in her dark eyes, which touched Yorke.
He was silent for a moment or two, then he said in a voice inaudible to Polly, who stolidly stitched and stitched in the inner room:
"You are right, Fin. Something has happened——."
"I knew it," she said, quietly.
He screwed his courage up.
"The fact is, Fin, I am—going to be married," he said, almost in a whisper.