Alice laughed outright. "You are much too young and pretty to be a mother to any one, Amy!"
"That's right. Taunt me because I haven't any children. Frederick is always complaining, as if it was my fault, which I'm sure it isn't. But as to this flirting——"
"It isn't flirting. Douglas and I understand one another."
"Really. How sly you are! Has he said anything?"
"All that I wished him to say."
"Then he has proposed?"
"Yes!" Alice contented herself with the affirmative and did not trouble to give the date of the proposal. Mrs. Barrast understood that it had taken place within the last day or so, and even that displeased her.
"It's quite immoral for him to be so hasty," she exclaimed, because the idea of Montrose adoring Alice and not herself was annoying and hurt her vanity.
The girl smiled, wondering what her hostess would say if she knew that the proposal had been made three weeks previously. "He's in love, you see!"
"There is sense in all things, my dear. He has only known you a month."