"I have promised to marry Colonel Broadcastle," announced Mrs. Wynyard when the silence had lasted twenty minutes.
Dorothy flung round from the window against which she had been mercilessly pressing her pretty nose.
"Why, Aunt Helen!" she exclaimed. "You really are the most startlingly abrupt person I ever knew. Are you in earnest? What under the sun possessed you to do that?"
"I think it must have been Colonel Broadcastle," answered Mrs. Wynyard, with an air of reflection. "It was last night when he was showing us over the armory, after the review. He not only asked me, but appeared to have quite set his heart upon my giving him an affirmative answer. And he had been so extremely civil, Dorothy, about our seats and all that, that I thought it would seem rather ungracious to refuse the first favor he had ever asked of me. So I said yes."
"Aunt Helen, Aunt Helen! One of these fine days you will be the death of me. Did any one ever hear of such a reason for accepting a man?"
"I couldn't think of a better one for refusing him," said Mrs. Wynyard serenely. "So there you are!"
"Talk about logic!" said Dorothy. She came across the room, and seated herself beside her aunt. "I never heard anything so exciting in my life!" she added. "Do you really mean it? Are you really going to marry him?"
"That is the arrangement, as I understand it," replied Mrs. Wynyard. "Of course, I haven't his promise in writing, but I think I can trust him. I once looked him up in your father's business guide, and he had three A's after his name. I'm sure I don't know what they can stand for, if it's not Acquaintance, Appeal, and Acceptance. I don't really see what else I could have done. It seems to have all been arranged without consulting me at all. One can't very well set one's self up in opposition to a business guide, you know."
"But he's old enough to be your father, Aunt Helen!"
"That's precisely the reason why there wouldn't have been any sense in my promising to be a sister to him. You see, I was quite helpless in the matter from start to finish."