"I don't mean that; but how could you look?"
"Well, I like that!" says her brother. "And pray what was to happen if I didn't? I gave 'em ten minutes; quite sufficient law, I think. If they couldn't get it over in that time, they must have forgotten their native tongue. Besides, I wanted to get down; the forked seat in the laurel was not all my fancy had painted it in the beginning, and how was I to know when they were gone unless I looked? Why, otherwise I might be there now. I might be there until next week," winds up Mr. Darling, with increasing wrath.
"It is true," puts in Mona. "How could he tell when the coast was clear for his escape, unless he took a little peep?"
"Go on, Nolly," says Nicholas.
"Well, Violet was crying (not loudly, you know, but quite comfortably): so then I thought I had been mistaken, and that probably she had a toothache, or a headache, or something, and that the foregoing speech was mere spooning; and I rather lost faith in the situation, when suddenly he said, 'Why do you cry?' And what do you think was her answer? 'Because I am so happy.' Now, fancy any one crying because she was happy!" says Mr. Darling, with fine disgust. "I always laugh when I'm happy. And I think it rather a poor thing to dissolve into tears because a man asks you to marry him: don't you, Mrs. Geoffrey?"
"I don't know, I'm sure. I have never thought about it. Did I cry, Geoffrey, when——" hesitates Mrs. Geoffrey, with a laugh, and a faint sweet blush.
"N—o. As far as I can remember," says Geoffrey, thoughtfully, pulling his moustache, "you were so overcome with delight at the unexpected honor I did you, that——"
"Oh, I dare say," Nicholas, ironically. "You get out!"
"What else did they say, Nolly?" asks Dorothy, in a wheedling tone.
"If they could only hear us now!" murmurs Geoffrey, addressing no one in particular.