He opened his serious eyes.
“Joke?”
She stared at him, lips parted.
“Justin! You can’t mean—you couldn’t mean——Aren’t you pulling my leg? Justin, you couldn’t possibly be in earnest?”
Some depth in his nature was stirred by her tone. He leant forward quite eagerly.
“Will you marry me, then? Naturally I’m in earnest. I’m awfully fond of you—really. And the old lady will be tremendously pleased. Will you marry me?”
She looked at him, breathless, her lips trembling, day dawning in her eyes.
“Oh, Justin—oh, Justin—what do you think? Of course I will!”
“That’s all right then!”
There was naïve complacency in his tone: it expressed his sense of a wise measure successfully concluded—no more. No more—yet for an instant he had remained leaning towards her with the strangest mingling of indecision, emotion and intention in his pose, as if his body were wiser than his soul.