“And what did you say, dear?” she asked.
“I told him how unexpected it was, that I could not answer him at once. But he knows, I think,” she added softly.
Peggy looked round quickly.
“Let us go indoors,” she said. “We can’t talk here, it is too open. The trees will hear, or the servants, and it’s dark. Come Edith!”
For one moment the brightness of Edith’s face faded, as if a cloud had passed over it, but it cleared again, and the two sisters, Peggy walking in front, entered the drawing-room that looked on to the lawn. And with the same instinct for privacy, Peggy closed the windows. Then she turned to her sister.
“Oh, Edith, what are you going to say to him?” she asked. “Surely it was possible to give him his answer at once—and you said he knew!”
But these words were only half-uttered, for even before they were spoken Peggy knew the futility of pretence like this. But even that only dimmed the brightness of Edith’s face as some light film of mist may dim the apparent brightness of the sun—ever so little a distance up in air, the films are below.
“Yes, I think he knew,” she said, “and it was stupid of me. For I knew too!”
“Then do you mean you are going to accept him?” asked Peggy.
“I have, in all but telling him so.”