He clenched his teeth together. "I feel as if I could shake you!..." and he glanced round to see if anyone were in sight.
"O, if you're going to be that sort of a tyrant!..." Diana began. But she got no further. No one was in sight, not even the boy with the horses. And van Hert just gathered her into his arms and crushed her for the sheer joy of it until she cried for mercy. "Say you will be good and treat me with proper respect," he demanded before he released her, and Diana was compelled to promise.
"But I won't marry you," she added, wickedly, the moment she was free. And then to save herself from a second undignified surrender she had to capitulate quickly, and add, "At least, not before next week."
Then she raised her eyes, shining with happiness, to his. "Meinheer van Hert, if my memory serves me rightly, you have not yet asked me the most important question of all."
He raised her hand again to his lips, with a movement of reverence, and said, very simply, "Diana, I love you with all my heart and soul and strength; will you do me the honour to become my wife?"
And there was a little warm glisten in her eyes as she answered, "Yes, dear; I am ready to take the long trek with you."
A little later she went home with an air of quiet radiance that told Meryl all she needed to know the moment she set eyes on her, and her embrace was full of warmest affection.
Only Aunt Emily seemed thoroughly perplexed, and not able to entirely grasp the happy aspect of affairs when she heard it all for the first time.
"How extraordinary!..." she exclaimed; and then, with an air full of mournful reproach, she looked at Diana and added, "I told you something dreadful would happen, my dear, if you spoke of the wedding so strangely."
"Yes, aunty, so you did! and it was very clever of you," Diana replied. "But, of course, you ought to have warned me before I said it. Now, you see, I've got caught in the net myself. Ah well!..." she finished comically, "I can bear it."