"They'll be on the veranda," he said. "We'll go round."
"You're not going in!" I said desperately.
He stopped and looked down at me.
"In six weeks I go to the front with my draft," he said. "And I hope to be killed. To-night has placed us both in the most extraordinary position. It's practically impossible for us, at the moment, to extricate ourselves. It just happens that fate has played into my hands in the rummiest way. I don't want to extricate myself. Six weeks is a very short time. I'm awfully rich. I'll give you a topping time, a time you'll remember all your life—if you won't try to extricate yourself for six weeks."
"Pretend to be engaged to you?"
"Why not? You've no one else in view at the moment. Everyone will envy you, and say sweet things to your face and nasty things behind your back. If you won't—I leave you to explain things to your people and the regiment and the wives of the regiment."
"I can't!"
"Precisely! Then why worry? What does our engagement demand of us? Civility and excessive courtesy in our bearing towards each other before people. And please"—he caught his breath sharply—"when we are alone we will have no horrible hypocrisy, no feminine flim-flam, no playing up and pretty lies and coquetries and deceits; nothing but the plain unvarnished truth and bare honesty; as we have no interest in each other, we can at least pay each other the compliment of behaving as if we were two men."
"But," I began, dazed. He absolutely carries you off your feet.
"Come on," he said curtly.