"I know? What do you mean, Dolly?"
In spite of the genuine and innocent surprise in the tone, Dolly was not satisfied.
"He has asked you to marry him and you have refused him," she said with conviction.
"I?"
For a moment Marion Darche stared in amazement. Then her eyes filled with tears and she turned away suddenly. Her voice was unsteady as she answered.
"No. He has not asked me to marry him."
"Are you quite sure, dear?" insisted Dolly. "You know men have such odd ways of saying it, and sometimes one does not quite understand—and then a word, or a glance—if a man is very sensitive—you know—"
"Do not talk like that," said Marion, a little abruptly.
A short silence followed, during which she moved uneasily about the room, touching the objects on the table, though they needed no arrangement. At last she spoke again, out of the dusk from the corner she had reached in her peregrination.
"If he asked me to marry him, I should accept him," she said in a low voice.