"Speak for yourself," said Sidney, with a taunting bitterness.
"Dear, if you'll believe me, I'm thinking quite as much of you. At twenty-two you would tie yourself for life!"
"That's my look-out," said Sidney, grandly. "Age isn't everything, and I'm not a boy; anyhow I know my own mind, if you don't know yours."
Gwynneth's eyes filled with tears.
"Oh, why did you tell me you cared for me?" she exclaimed. "Why did you make me say I cared for you? It was true—it was true—but we seem to have spoilt it by putting it into words. Oh, I was so happy before you spoke! I never was so happy as all last week. I could have gone on like that—I was so happy. And now it's all different already; you are, and I am . . ."
Sidney was watching her tears unmoved, for she had made him reflect. All at once he saw his heartlessness, and next moment he was kissing her tears away; vowing there was no difference in him; but, if it was otherwise with her, well, then, let them consider everything unsaid, and start afresh.
Gwynneth shook her head. Her eyes were dry again and full of thought.
"No, dear, we can't do that; and you mustn't think I am not happy in your love, because I am. Only, there seemed to be such a spell between us before we were sure of each other. But perhaps it's always like that."
In the end they were engaged, but it was not to be a public engagement for six months. Meanwhile Sidney returned to Cambridge for the Long, having taken only a part of his degree; and Gwynneth quickly recovered her reputation as a reformed character in the eyes of Lady Gleed, who was less against the match than her husband, and who took the girl to innumerable parties, each of which Gwynneth made a determined effort to enjoy as thoroughly as the first half of the First Trinity ball.
She seemed always in the highest spirits; and there was no one about her who knew her well enough to know also that this perpetual brightness was hard and unnatural in Gwynneth. Closer observers than Sir Wilton and his wife might indeed have suspected as much; but there was only one occasion upon which Gwynneth betrayed the livelier symptoms of a troubled spirit. This was on her birthday at the beginning of July; upon the breakfast table was a registered packet with the Cambridge post-mark, and in its morocco case Gwynneth presently beheld a richer necklace than she had ever dreamt of possessing as her own. Yet the look in her face was so strange that Lady Gleed was obliged to speak.