"What a horrid thing to say!" she exclaimed.
"About you?" he defended himself. "I mean it as a compliment."
"About falling in love," she said.
"Oh!" he said blankly, evidently not at all following her meaning.
"What time is it?" she now inquired, and on hearing the hour, "Oh, we'll be late to dress for dinner," she said in concern, rising and ascending the marble steps to the terrace next above them.
He came after her, long, loose-jointed, ungraceful. He was laughing. "Do you realize that I've proposed marriage to you and you've turned me down?" he said.
"No such a thing!" she said, as lightly as he.
"It's the nearest I ever came to it!" he averred.
She continued to flit up the terraces before him, her voice rippling with amusement dropping down on him through the dusk. "Well, you'll have to come nearer than that, if you ever want to make a go of it!" she called over her shoulder. Upon which note this very modern conversation ended.