He took the small gloved hand and pressed it lovingly. The thoroughness of his social training prevented any further display of affection.
“Thank Heaven!” he murmured.
They were essentially of the nineteenth century—these two. At a previous dance he had asked her to marry him; she had deferred her answer, and now she had given it. These little matters are all a question of taste. We do not kneel nowadays, either physically or morally. If we are a trifle off hand, it is the women who are to blame. They should not write in magazines of a doubtful reputation in language devoid of the benefit of the doubt. They are equal to us. Bien! One does not kneel to an equal. A better writer than any of us says that men serve women kneeling, and when they get to their feet they go away. We are being hauled up to our feet now.
“But—?” began the girl, and went no further.
“But what?”
“There will be difficulties.”
“No doubt,” he answered, with quiet mockery. “There always are. I will see to them. Difficulties are not without a certain advantage. They keep one on the alert.”
“Your father,” said the girl. “Sir John—he will object.”
Jack Meredith reflected for a moment, lazily, with that leisureliness which gave a sense of repose to his presence.
“Possibly,” he admitted gravely.