"Is Miss Morrison at home?"
"Yes, sir." Hannah left him standing while she departed in search. Then, with a leap and a laugh, Kathleen was before him.
"Isn't this fun?" She was radiant against her dull umber background. "Gareth, why don't you say something? Come in here."
"Here" was Edward's study, with swathed chairs, and chandeliers draped in a sheet. Kathleen had lit a pair of candles, but in the semi-obscurity he could form no impression of his surroundings. It might have been any house, anywhere. But he had a sensation that he ought to speak in whispers.
"Are you alone here?" and wondered whether, under those circumstances, he did not do wrong in coming? Which was absurd, considering Alpenruh. But North Kensington was different.
Before many minutes, she saw that he intended asking her to marry him, and rather feverishly sought to ward it off. The hushed room was a trap now, and the moss-green evening-gown an added menace. Gareth, quietly persistent, dodged all her bright and chatty openings, and succeeded at last in putting the question she dreaded.
"Will you, Kathleen?"
"Gareth, how do you see marriage?"
Astonished, he replied: "With you? As a fire-lit dream-come-true."
"Not with me. With anyone."