'For weeks you must have known it.'
'Known—what?'
'That I love you!' he said in a low voice, and bending till his moustache touched her cheek; 'and now I ask you to give me yourself.'
The hand was withdrawn now; she coloured, but not deeply, and her eyelashes drooped.
'Give me yourself, darling,' he resumed, 'and trust to me for taking care of you all the days of your life.'
Though she must have expected some such ending as this to their late hourly intimacy, she was nevertheless astonished, and said, with a little nervous laugh at the abruptness and matter-of-fact form of the proposal:
'Cousin Ronald, I can surely take care of myself. But—but do you want to marry me?'
'Of course!' replied Cousin Ronald, with very open eyes, while tugging the ends of his moustache.
'Well—it can't be.'
'Can't be?'