Again she laughed.
"When shall we be married was what you meant."
She looked extremely pretty and rather shy. He had never noticed before how fine was her mouth, how fine and fair the curve of her upper lip.
"Yes, sapphire and turquoise," he said. His lips said it, his brain said it.
The sonorous tones of the Chinese gong, manipulated with so cunning a crescendo and diminuendo by Lind, boomed through the house. Immediately afterwards Mrs. Hancock's tread, noticeably heavy, was heard on the stairs. She hummed some little nameless ditty in warning. Edith got up.
"Dinner already?" she said.
Edward, perhaps, was not quite so much surprised at the swiftness of the passage of this half-hour.
"Before you have answered my question," he said as the door opened.