"Ah don't talk of that now," said Nick, "for, you see, nothing else is settled. No one has been told except my mother. She has only consented to my telling you."
"Lady Agnes, do you mean?"
"Ah no; dear mother would like to publish it on the house-tops. She's so glad—she wants us to have it over to-morrow. But Julia herself," Nick explained, "wishes to wait. Therefore kindly mention it for the present to no one."
"My dear boy, there's at this rate nothing to mention! What does Julia want to wait for?"
"Till I like her better—that's what she says."
"It's the way to make you like her worse," Mr. Carteret knowingly declared. "Hasn't she your affection?"
"So much so that her delay makes me exceedingly unhappy."
Mr. Carteret looked at his young friend as if he didn't strike him as quite wretched; but he put the question: "Then what more does she want?" Nick laughed out at this, though perceiving his host hadn't meant it as an epigram; while the latter resumed: "I don't understand. You're engaged or you're not engaged."
"She is, but I'm not. That's what she says about it. The trouble is she doesn't believe in me."
Mr. Carteret shone with his candour. "Doesn't she love you then?"