"Well played, Ralph!" he exclaimed. "It just shows that one never ought to despair of a man. When you went down to Borrowness after your Intermediate, I could have sworn that the siren was going to have an easy walk over."
"I am glad you both had sense enough to settle it so quickly," Lucy said phlegmatically, when Mona told her the news.
"Do you mean to say you suspected anything?"
"Suspected! I call that gratitude! The first time I saw Dr Dudley at St Kunigonde's, he said the surgery was as close as a Borrowness town-council room; and as soon as I mentioned him to you, I saw it all. I have been trying to bring you together ever since. Suspect, indeed! I can tell you, Mona, it was as well for my peace of mind that I did suspect."
"What a she-Lothario it is!"
"Don't be alarmed," said Lucy loftily. "When I was a child I thought as a child, but—I have outgrown all such frivolities. I—I am to be the advanced woman, after all! When you and Doris are lost in your nurseries, I shall be posing as a martyr, or leading a forlorn hope!"
CHAPTER LXI.
A FIN-DE-SIÈCLE COURTSHIP.
It was arranged that the wedding should take place as soon as Ralph and Mona had passed their M.B. examination in the October of the following year; and during the fifteen months that intervened, they resolved to devote themselves with a whole heart to their studies, and if possible to forget that they were lovers.
"It would never do to fail at this juncture," Mona said, when the first week of their engagement came to an end, "and I certainly shall fail if we go on living at this rate. I have a great mind to go to the Colquhouns', and study at the Edinburgh School."