"Why should your mother wish to meet me?"
"Oh," he answered. "Don't you realise that I'm an only son?"
"What's that got to do with it?"
He looked at her gravely, his flexible lips steady as iron. "Most mothers want to know the girl their son's going to marry, don't you think?"
Before she could help it, she laughed. "But her sons aren't going to marry me."
"No, but her son is. I am. Oh, yes," he went on before she could speak. "We shan't be married this winter, of course, but in the spring we shall. You may choose a nice month. It'll be a proud day for you, my dear, and jolly lucky you'll be to get me!"
She rose and refused another sweet. "No thanks, we must go in now. I've got a lot to do. My father's not very well, and I may have to go down to Torquay to look after him if he doesn't get better."
"Miss Walbridge," he spoke in a voice that to her was quite new, and when she turned, looking at him over her shoulder, something in the dignity of his face forced her to turn completely round and wait.
"Don't think me a perfect fool," he said. "I can't help teasing you. You—you're so little and so young. What I'd like to do would be to lift you up on my shoulder and run round and round the garden with you, and scare the life out of you, but I daren't do that, so I have to tease you. Besides, you know," he added very gravely, "it is true that I love you, and I mean you to marry me."