“Then help me to mend my bicycle, and you can call there to-morrow. It’s ‘The Grange’—you can’t miss it. No, not another word of nonsense, please, or we can’t possibly be friends.”
He helped her to mend the bicycle, and they talked of the beauty of spring and of modern poetry.
It was at “The Grange,” Felsenden, that Maurice next saw Miss Redmayne—and it was from “The Grange,” Felsenden, that, in September, he married her.
“And why did you say you would never, never be anything but a friend?” he asked her on the day when that marriage was arranged. “Oh! you nearly made me believe you! Why did you say it?”
“One must say something!” she answered. “Besides, you’d never have respected me if I’d said ‘yes’ at once.”
“Could you have said it? Did you like me then?”
She looked at him, and her look was an answer. He stooped and gravely kissed her.
“And you really cared, even then? I wish you had been braver,” he said a little sadly.