"Ha! I knew I should win," he said, "but it wasn't nice of me to laugh.
I take back the laugh. Poor old Bradshaw! Did he mind much?"
Helena looked at him, still standing close to him, smiling and in silence. She really found him most attractive at that moment, and she wondered with how changed a face he would presently look at her.
"Yes, he proposed to me this afternoon," she said, still smiling, and still looking at him.
"Well, poor old Bradshaw!" said Archie once more. But he did not say it with quite the same confidence.
She laid her hand, that soft hand with sheathed claws, on his arm.
"Archie, aren't you going to wish me happiness?" she asked.
The lines of his laughter still lingered on his handsome mouth, but now they were merely stamped there and meant nothing.
"Wish you happiness?" he rapped out in a hard snappish voice.
"Yes; isn't it usual between friends?"
"Do you mean you've accepted him?" he asked.