The gong was given a prominent position in the bare hall, and Guy invited Richard up to his own room. After the question of the presents had been solved Richard was shy and silent again, and Guy found it very hard to make conversation. Several times his visitor seemed on the point of getting something off his mind, but when he was given an opportunity for speech he never accepted it. Desperate for a topic, Guy showed him the proofs of the poems, and explained that he was binding them roughly as his present to Pauline to-morrow.
"That's something I can't understand," said Richard, intensely. "Writing! It beats me!"
"Bridges would beat me," said Guy.
Richard looked quite cheerful at this notion and under the influence of the encouragement he had received seemed at last on the point of getting out what he wanted to say, but he could manage nothing more confidential than a tug at his bristled fair mustache.
"When are you and Margaret going to be married?" Guy asked, abruptly, for, of course, he had guessed that it was Margaret's name which was continually on the tip of his tongue.
"By Jove! there you are! I'm rather stumped," said Richard, gloomily. "You see, the thing is ... well ... I suppose you know that when I started off to India last June year, Margaret and I were sort of engaged ... at least I was certainly engaged to her, only she hadn't absolutely made up her mind about me ... and, of course, that's just what you'd expect would happen to a chap like me ... dash it all! Hazlewood, I'm afraid to ask her again!"
"I don't think you need be," said Guy. "Of course we haven't discussed you, except very indirectly," he hastily added, "but I'm positive that Margaret is only waiting for you to ask her to marry her on some definite day; on some definite day, Ford, that's the great thing to remember."
"You mean I ought to say, 'Margaret, will you marry me on the twelfth of August, or the first of September? That's your notion, is it?"
Guy nodded.
"By gad! I'll ask her to-day," said Richard.