"No, Daisy," he said half sadly, "you mustn't be against me. I always count on you."
Daisy laughed a little wistfully. "Always did, dear, didn't you? Well, tell me some more. What made you propose all of a sudden like this? Are you—very much in love?"
He looked at her. "Perhaps not quite as we used to understand the term," he said, seeming to speak half-reluctantly.
"Oh, we were very extravagant and foolish," rejoined Daisy lightly. "I didn't mean quite in that way, Blake. You at least are past the age for such feathery nonsense, or should be. I was—aeons and aeons ago."
"Were you?" he said, and still he looked at her half in wonder, it seemed, and half in regret.
Daisy nodded at him briskly. The colour had come back to her face. "Yes, I have arrived at years of discretion," she assured him. "And I quite agree with Solomon that childhood and youth are vanity. But now let us talk about this. Is she in love with you, I wonder? I must be remarkably blind not to have seen it. How in the world I shall ever face Nick again, I can't imagine."
Grange frowned. "I'm getting a bit tired of Nick," he said moodily.
"He crops up everywhere."
Daisy's face flushed. "Don't you ever again say a word against him in my hearing," she said. "For I won't bear it. He may not be handsome like you; but for all that, he's about the finest man I know."
"Good heavens!" said Blake. "As much as that!"
She nodded vehemently. "Yes, quite as much. And he loves her, too, loves her with his whole soul. Perhaps you never knew that they would have been married long ago in Simla if Muriel hadn't overheard some malicious gossip and thrown him over. How in the world she made him let her go I never knew, but she did it, though I believe it nearly broke his heart. He came to me afterwards and begged me to keep her with me as long as I could, and take care of her."