"Oh, Boy," cried Jane, with a movement of impatience, "don't speak to me as if I were a patient. Treat me as a human being, at least, and tell me—as man to man—could I have tied Garth Dalmain to my plain face? For you know it is plain."
The doctor laughed. He was glad to make Jane a little angry. "My dear girl," he said, "were we speaking as man to man, I should have a few very strong things to say to you. As we are speaking as man to woman,—and as a man who has for a very long time respected, honoured, and admired a very dear and noble woman,—I will answer your question frankly. You are not beautiful, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, and no one who really loves you would answer otherwise; because no one who knows and loves you would dream of telling you a lie. We will even allow, if you like, that you are plain, although I know half a dozen young men who, were they here, would want to kick me into the street for saying so, and I should have to pretend in self-defence that their ears had played them false and I had said, 'You are JANE,' which is all they would consider mattered. So long as you are yourself, your friends will be well content. At the same time, I may add, while this dear face is under discussion, that I can look back to times when I have felt that I would gladly walk twenty miles for a sight of it; and in its absence I have always wished it present, and in its presence I have never wished it away."
"Ah, but, Deryck, you did not have to have it always opposite you at meals," insisted Jane gravely.
"Unfortunately not. But I enjoyed the meals more on the happy occasions when it was there."
"And, Deryck—YOU DID NOT HAVE TO KISS IT."
The doctor threw back his head and shouted with laughter, so that Flower, passing up the stairs, wondered what turn the conversation could be taking.
But Jane was quite serious; and saw in it no laughing matter.
"No, dear," said the doctor when he had recovered; "to my infinite credit be it recorded, that in all the years I have known it I have never once kissed it."
"Dicky, don't tease! Oh, Boy, it is the most vital question of my whole life; and if you do not now give me wise and thoughtful advice, all this difficult confession will have been for nothing."
The doctor became grave immediately. He leaned forward and took those clasped hands between his.