Violet turned again to her sister. “When did he propose?”
With an air of amused contempt, again Aurelia looked her up and down.
“How antiquated you are! Don’t you know that all that sort of thing has gone out?”
“Do you mean that he didn’t propose?”
“Of course not. I proposed to him.”
“What?”
“He was so coy about it, too,” Aurelia, quite as though she were eating sweetmeats, resumed. “He asked me all about my finances, what settlements I would make and whether I would object if he kept a separate establishment. You can’t really fancy how coy he was. He quite blushed and stammered, the poor thing.”
“I should think he might.”
“Yes, indeed. He asked me if I had spoken to his mamma, and I told him that while it was perhaps incorrect of me to speak to him in the first instance, yet that there could be no real love without a mutual misunderstanding, and now that we had one I would make a formal demand of the old lady to-day.”